Palytsia “caught” at a scandalous party for an odious regionalist

Palytsia “caught” at a scandalous party for an odious regionalist

Head of the Volyn Regional Council Ihor Palytsia attended the birthday celebration of an ex-Regional Party member, now a People’s Deputy from the Vidrodzhennia group and a figure in the so-called “black ledger” of the Party of Regions, Yevhen Heller.

The video was released by the program Skhemy, a joint project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the TV channel UA:Pershyi, whose journalists witnessed the event with a large number of VIP guests. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports this.

The birthday celebration for Deputy Heller took place on 12 May at the Lypksyi Mansion restaurant in the capital.

In addition to the head of the Volyn council, the former head of the Verkhovna Rada budget committee from the Yanukovych era was visited by Head of the Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin, oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, co-owner of the Privat group Hennadiy Boholiubov, sponsor of the Opposition Bloc deputy Vadym Novynskyi, MPs from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko Valerii Ishchenko, deputies from Vidrodzhennia Vitalii Khomutynnyk, Oleh Kulinich, Anton Kisse and Oleksandr Bilovol, Ihor Shkyria, Valerii Pysarenko, Valentyn Nechyporenko, Anton Yatsenko, Dmytro Svyatash, Andrii Shypko, representatives of the Opposition Bloc Andrii Kyselov and Mykhailo Papiiev, and former Party of Regions deputy Volodymyr Prodievus.

During Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency, Yevhen Heller was an influential member of the Party of Regions and chaired one of the key parliamentary committees – the Budget Committee.

Now Yevhen Heller is a deputy from the Vidrodzhennia group.

According to the published documents of the Party of Regions’ “black ledger,” in 2012 year, while Yevhen Heller served as chair of the Budget Committee, a person with the surname Heller and the same initials received 400 dollars for airfare, 160 thousand dollars marked “deputies into the coalition,” 395 thousand dollars marked “Our Ukraine,” 500 thousand dollars marked “CEC,” 4,9 thousand dollars marked “advance on,” nearly a million dollars with an illegible purpose, two more advances and two repayments, 70 thousand dollars marked “Zanevskyi A.P.” (the surname of Yanukovych’s head of security was exactly that).

The largest amount was 1 million 420 thousand dollars marked “Apostol (Coalition).”

On 31 May the outlet Ukrainska Pravda published records that allegedly indicate the Party of Regions’ shadow cash expenditures, according to which in the second half of 2012 year 66 million dollars were spent through the “black ledger.”

And on 30 May the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine opened an investigation based on a statement by former Deputy Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Viktor Trepak about the Party of Regions’ “black ledger.”

According to him, this concerns the so-called “black ledger” of the Party of Regions with total payments amounting to about 2 billion dollars.