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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
It took State Bureau of Investigations Director Oleksiy Sukhachov four years to clear the criminal case “Monaco Battalion” of Monaco and all its suspects.
We analyze how this rescue operation unfolded.
Four years ago, in August 2022, the SBI opened criminal case No. 62022000000000619 concerning Ukrainian members of parliament, law enforcement officers, and senior officials who continued to live their best lives in Monaco during the war. The scandal, dubbed “Monaco Battalion,” involved dozens of Ukrainian VIP refugees — members of parliament, former high-ranking law enforcement officials, and businessmen. Among those named in the case were MPs Ihor Abramovych and Vadym Stolar, former head of the Department for Economic Protection of the National Police Serhii Vyazmikin, businessmen the Surkis brothers, and Vadym Yermolaiev.
The first to come under the SBI’s scrutiny was Vadym Stolar. Investigators established that on 14 March 2022, a Mercedes-Benz GLS 400 belonging to a company of his father, Mykhailo Stolar, left Ukraine and never returned. After this episode appeared in the criminal case, the suspects began to cover their tracks: on 29 July the car was re-registered at the Kyiv service center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The investigation decided to check who had illegally signed documents while the vehicle was abroad: it seized papers from the notary, collected signature samples, and in January 2023 ordered a handwriting expert examination.
At that point the “Monaco Battalion” case can be considered buried: not only Stolar’s family but also other VIP refugees vanish from the court record. They are replaced by regional officials who traveled to Europe under the guise of business trips, and then the case drops another level — to men who left Ukraine through the “Shlyakh” system allegedly for humanitarian aid. The register now contains 134 court rulings in criminal case No. 62022000000000619 — and not a single conviction. The latest court ruling in the case that began as an investigation into the illegal departures of Abramovych and Stolar already concerns a declaration check of a deputy of the Khmelnytskyi District Council.
The fates of the “Monaco Battalion” suspects turned out differently. Abramovych and Vyazmikin remain in Monaco and profit from kickbacks on VAT, tax-free alcohol, fuel, and cigarette trade. Vadym Yermolaiev, whom GUR and SBU operatives tried to assassinate, is being treated in France. Vadym Stolar had to return to Ukraine after receiving a suspicion notice from NABU for creating an organized crime group.
Oleksiy Sukhachov, whose term as SBI director expires at the end of this year, proved that Zelensky did not appoint him in vain: after five years at the head of the country’s main investigative body he still hasn’t jailed anyone.
Telegram publication
