Ukrgasbank and 21 Billion Hryvnias in Refinancing from Kyrylo Shevchenko

Ukrgasbank and 21 billion hryvnias in refinancing from Kyrylo Shevchenko

The escape of the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Kyrylo Shevchenko, and the announcement of him being wanted is taking on increasingly vivid colors by the day. Just two days ago it turned out that together with him NABU announced top managers of Ukrgasbank wanted.

We are talking about the former chair of Ukrgasbank’s board, one of the bank’s deputy chairmen, and the deputy director of the department for work with corporate VIP clients of that bank. They are accused of siphoning more than 200 million hryvnias out of their Ukrgasbank. And, it seems, that is only a small part of what was stolen.

The former chair of Ukrgasbank, whom NABU is looking for, is Kyrylo Shevchenko, who served as its board chair until his appointment as head of the NBU in 2020.

The National Anti‑Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is searching for suspects in criminal proceeding No. 52019000000000143 dated 20.02.2019 on the facts of officials of JSC “Ukrgasbank,” as part of an organized group, embezzling funds of this bank by abusing their official positions.

Two other bankers wanted are Denys Chernyshov and Olena Khmelenko:

In this regard it should be emphasized that Ukrgasbank is one of four state banks of Ukraine. It is listed among systemically important banks, alongside Privat.

The scandal over the search for three senior managers was a painful blow to the bank. So painful that Ukrgasbank even had to issue an official statement claiming that the whole scandal does not affect the bank’s operations:

We will, of course, hope so, but… A bank’s activity is best reflected in its financial results. If in 2021 Ukrgasbank earned 2,7 billion hryvnias, here are the financial indicators for the nine months of this year:

The “earnings” amount to almost four billion hryvnias. Only with a minus sign—that is, it’s four billion in losses.

Here is a consolidated table of the bank’s financial results for the second quarter of 2022.

Over the next three months Ukrgasbank added 198,5 million hryvnias to its losses. But other figures are more interesting. We are not bankers, but the size of the liabilities compared to the bank’s assets looks alarming. Yes, assets exceed liabilities. But note the size of the bank’s loan portfolio and the amount of deposits placed in it. So long as the bank is stable, everything is fine. But if problems arise tomorrow—there will be nothing to pay it all back with. Because assets will not be enough. They already exceed liabilities by only 9 million. And there are over 25 million in deposits placed in the bank. Still, we repeat—maybe this is normal for a bank in the current conditions. And our doubts about Ukrgasbank’s stability in light of these figures may be pure amateurishness.

Against all this, the amount of refinancing that the NBU under Kyrylo Shevchenko allocated to Ukrgasbank looks very interesting. Overall, since the start of the full‑scale invasion the National Bank has allocated over 100 billion hryvnias to the Ukrainian banking sector for refinancing. Ukrgasbank received almost a quarter of that money—21,2 billion.

Ukrgasbank is run by Kyrylo Shevchenko’s protégé, Andriy Kravets, a former top manager of the daughter of the Russian state bank VTB in Ukraine. It is also interesting that during the new war the largest amount of refinancing from Shevchenko went to the Russian bank Alfa in Ukraine—6,7 billion hryvnias. Of that, 4,6 billion was provided without any collateral. Another bank that belongs to the Russian criminal authority Yevhen Hiner—PIN‑bank—received 1,2 billion hryvnias during this time.

Read also: How much money PIN‑bank of Russian Yevhen Hiner received from the head of the NBU who fled, Kyrylo Shevchenko

What an interesting coincidence. But the coincidences don’t end there. In connection with such a generous distribution of state money, it is interesting that Shevchenko recently purchased some movable property in Switzerland for 78 million hryvnias, which he gifted to an unknown person. Meanwhile the average salary of an official at the NBU was about 500 thousand hryvnias per month.

The official’s personal savings (the official is now former) are kept in Switzerland at Banque Lombard Odier & Co LTD (Zurich). They amount to over 3 million US dollars. This bank is known for laundering dirty money for Gulnara Karimova—the daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan—for about 1 billion dollars. It seems Kyrylo Yevhenovych also knows where to keep and launder stolen money. It is also known that about 14 million of Shevchenko’s and his wife Yuliya’s cash is kept in various currencies.

In addition, rumors say Shevchenko long prepared for his escape and already bought real estate in Montenegro on the seaside and allegedly even obtained citizenship there. As we see, these rumors turned out not to be mere rumors and were a surprise only to Ukraine’s top leadership and its law‑enforcement system.

By the way, about money—the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), citing the war, closed access to officials’ and deputies’ declarations. Supposedly until 24 there was no war. So Mr. Shevchenko’s salary in the last year of his service as head of the National Bank can only be guessed at. As can be the purchases he considered necessary to list in the declaration—because, if you recall, the Constitutional Court after appeals from members of parliament last year decriminalized lying in declarations.

And one more thing about money. This time—about refinancing provided by the National Bank of Ukraine. By order of Kyrylo Shevchenko’s successor as head of the NBU, Andriy Pyshny, this information has also recently become classified. Why Mr. Pyshny classified this data remains only a matter of conjecture. However, looking at how generously Shevchenko handed out these funds and how his wealth grew during his years heading the National Bank, an unpleasant conclusion suggests itself.