What is Vladimir Krotiuk, the right-hand man of occupiers' accomplice Arbuzov, doing at Clearing House Bank?

What is Vladimir Krotiuk, the right-hand man of occupiers' accomplice Arbuzov, doing at Clearing House Bank?

Although nine years have passed since Yanukovych's flight, figures from that illustrious era still remain in Ukraine and from time to time surface in the most interesting places and no less interesting configurations.

Meet — "Clearing House Bank." It would seem to be an ordinary mid-tier bank.

Nothing special. But its Supervisory Board composition:

Among the members of the Supervisory Board the surname Krotiuk Volodymyr Leonidovych modestly stands out. With the no less modest title “member of the Supervisory Board.” But this is a very notable person, and it is not for nothing that he is listed on the Supervisory Board of the Clearing House.

The bank itself is nothing special, if one does not know the fact that it is an ordinary shell bank that belongs to the sister of former head of presidential administration Kuchma, Yuliia Lyovochkina, in partnership with Dmytro Firtash’s younger business partner Ivan Fursin.

As is known, Ivan Fursin brought Kyiv Misto-Bank to bankruptcy, where he was the principal shareholder. Misto-Bank primarily engaged in moving money belonging to Firtash, Lyovochkina and their companies abroad. Under the law Fursin cannot be a bank shareholder, but the new NBU head Andriy Pyshnyi turns a blind eye to such details.

That’s about the bank. Now let’s move to Krotiuk himself, thanks to whom, it seems, the Clearing House is still staying afloat. Volodymyr Krotiuk is a former Prosecutor General’s Office official who in 1994 moved to work at the National Bank of Ukraine. There he handled banking supervision, financial monitoring and the legal department, and from 2000 until his retirement in 2014 he was a deputy governor of the NBU.

In essence he was engaged in servicing the schemes of his bosses. Recall that Krotiuk’s career peak at the NBU coincided with the period when the regulator was headed by Serhiy Arbuzov, who had replaced the no less odious Stelmakh. And during the tenures of these two heads Volodymyr Krotiuk was most active.

Why he was quietly allowed to retire instead of being disgracefully dismissed is a mystery. Because already in early 2014, when Arbuzov fled following Yanukovych and perturbations began at the NBU as well as across the country, a considerable scandal erupted over the appointment of Krotiuk as first deputy governor of the NBU by Stepan Kubiv.

Documents surfaced that shed light on schemes for moving 6,5 billion dollars out of Ukraine, in which Arbuzov’s deputy Volodymyr Krotiuk was implicated. The money-extraction operations in 2013–2014 were carried out by two banks controlled by Odesa businessman Borys Kaufman — JSC Finbank and JSC Platinum Bank.

The source of the funds moved abroad were state monies allocated for the implementation of budget programs. The companies involved in these operations were mostly registered at two addresses in buildings owned by Borys Kaufman in the city of Odesa.

People's Deputy Serhiy Mishchenko accused Finbank and Platinum Bank of financing separatists. Mishchenko appealed to the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Revenues and Duties demanding an investigation into the possible involvement of these banks in financing separatist movements in Ukraine.

“This scheme operated with the participation of officials of the National Bank of Ukraine during the rule of Viktor Yanukovych and Serhiy Arbuzov. Currently among the persons involved in this scheme only the former deputy of Serhiy Arbuzov — Volodymyr Krotiuk — remains in office. Stepan Kubiv (former head of the NBU) appointed Krotiuk to the position of first deputy governor of the NBU. Now, together with foreign colleagues, the further movement of these funds is being checked to determine whether they were directed to finance separatist and terrorist activities in southeastern Ukraine,” the Ministry of Revenues and Duties stated at the time.

What the outcome of the investigation was is unknown, but Gontareva, who replaced Kubiv as head of the NBU, quickly got rid of Krotiuk, sending him into retirement. Why they decided to hush up the scandal is unknown. The fate of Deputy Mishchenko’s appeal to the SBU requesting a check of Volodymyr Krotiuk’s involvement in financing pro-Russian fighters in the L/DPR is also unknown.

As for Finbank and Platinum Bank, having lost access to budget funds and NBU patronage, they quickly went under and were liquidated.

But Volodymyr Krotiuk himself did not disappear after retirement — he surfaced at Lyovochkin-Firtash’s bank, who had been favored by the system during Yanukovych’s time. However, times are somewhat different now. No matter how much people around Yanukovych cheered themselves up awaiting a comeback in 2019, 2022 upset all the cards.

As economic expert Oleksiy Komakha wrote, "Clearing House Bank" seems to have exhausted all its resources and will soon go under. But for now it stays afloat thanks to the respected NBU man Krotiuk and sponsor money from Lyovochkin-Firtash, which Krotiuk knows how to properly hand over to Pyshnyi.