KYIV. Feb 26 (Interfax) - First deputy secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), Oleh Hladkovsky, has written to the country's law enforcement bodies asking them to check allegations made by the investigative journalism website Bihus.Info regarding illegal deals during the acquisition of army supplies, and that he be suspended from office.
"To prevent any insinuations, I personally turn both to the Main military prosecutor's office and the NABU [National anti-corruption bureau of Ukraine] with an application for a swift inquiry into everything set out in the 'investigation' and provide answers to me, and to the entire public," Hladkovsky said in a statement obtained by Interfax on Tuesday.
"For the duration of the law enforcement inquiry into the matter, I hereby request that my powers as NSDC First Deputy Secretary and Chairman of the Interdepartmental commission for policy, military-technical cooperation and export control be suspended. I am submitting relevant requests immediately," the statement said.
Hladkovsky categorically denied the accusations set out in the investigation, saying that, "like most of the material of this genre, it cites exclusively anonymous sources and contains a compilation of well-known facts and dirty fakes."
"It lends no plausibility to the story. Basically, I categorically reject all those accusations that were expressed in the so-called investigation. But because it prompted quite a big public outcry, we are all interested in dotting all the I's. So as to protect the reputation of the people who during the extreme crisis of 2014-15 were dealing with urgent, vital, critical problems to restore the army's fighting capability," Hladkovsky said.
Law enforcement agencies will investigate the numerous claims, including by the NSDC, of corruption and other financial fraud in the defense sector, he said. "No one ever tried to hide them in a box... Where facts prove real, they should be made known and passed to a court as soon as possible," Hladkovsky said.
At the same time, law enforcers should investigate not only "those who were restoring the army, but also those who were ruining it" before 2014, he said. "I am talking about the unjustified cuts in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the pillaging of army lands, the selling-off of arms and military hardware for nothing - basically, the destroying of the army's fighting capabilities in the run-up to the Russian aggression. The names of the heroes involved are known. They include Anatoly Hrytsenko, a former defense minister and parliamentary defense committee chairman, as one of the main army hawkers. Also, the ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko who signed relevant government resolutions," Hladkovsky said.
"It is them who led to such a critical situation where in 2014 it fell to us to look for unconventional ways to provide the army with weapons and proper equipment. History will put everything in its place," Hladkovsky said.
The Bihus.Info investigative journalism project released a film on February 25, which says that Ihor Hladkovsky (Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council First Deputy Secretary Oleh Hladkovsky's son), Vitaliy Zhukov and Andriy Rohoza supplied Ukrainian defense companies through straw firms with spare parts smuggled from Russia or spare parts from Ukrainian military units priced at 100% to 200% more than their real value. The journalists said the people involved in the scheme had embezzled at least 250 million hryvni this way.
The authors of the investigation claimed that Oleh Hladkovsky, who was formerly President Petro Poroshenko's business partner, Ukroboronprom CEO and former chief of Ukrspetsexport Pavlo Bukin, and directors of some defense companies and other high-ranking officers at Ukroboronprom are responsible for corrupt dealings. The report says these dealings were arranged through three key straw companies, one of them being Kuznya na Rybalskomu (formerly known as Leninska Kuznya), a shipbuilding and armament plant belonging to Poroshenko at the time.
Ihor Hladkovsky said that he will sue the creators of the film accusing him of corruption in the defense sector. The Ukrainian presidential representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Lutsenko, also described the findings shown in the film as insinuations and warned that the people mentioned in it would sue the journalists.