“Mindichgate” as a grand robbery: Rostyslav Shurma, the Alliance Bank, and the shadow of Yermak in schemes involving millions in energy

“Mindichgate” as a grand robbery: Rostyslav Shurma, the Alliance Bank, and the shadow of Yermak in schemes involving millions in energy

One of the largest corruption scandals in recent days has become the so-called “Mindichgate,” the defendants in which turn out to be literally the closest associates of the current president of Ukraine. Fuel was added to the fire by the “sudden” disappearance of key figures in the Midas operation from NABU — no one believes this is a coincidence.

In connection with Timur Mindich’s urgent trip to Israel, it was impossible not to recall another urgent evacuation of another key staff member of the President’s Office — Rostyslav Shurma, who disappeared from Ukraine several months earlier and surfaced first in Germany, then in Austria. The reasons for the flight in both cases were the same — interest in their persons from NABU, which is claimed to be the only law enforcement body not under the President’s control.

This assertion is somewhat exaggerated, but the point is not this, but that both “great” political figures — Shurma and Mindich — had grounds to fear NABU’s investigation, which, again by rumor, is backed by the FBI. The FBI, as everyone understands, does not care about the “roof” of Andriy Yermak, who formerly headed the President’s Office and is called a key figure in the scheme to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in Ukraine’s energy sector.

According to NABU’s investigation data, with the help of a scheme involving “top” Ukrainian officials and businessmen, colossal funds were stolen, received from Western partners for the restoration of Ukraine’s damaged energy sector and to protect it from attacks by Russia.

However, behind the noise around the flight of scheme defendants and the clamor of famous surnames, one of the key questions was lost — if at least 100 millions of dollars were stolen, how were these funds withdrawn from state enterprise accounts? After all, these are our partners’ money, they arrive in our country cashless. In the same bags and sacks with dollars that green thieves found hard to carry, they had to somehow be converted.

Whether there is an answer to this question in NABU’s investigation is unknown, but independent sources claim that the money was actively withdrawn through Alliance Bank, connected with Rostyslav Shurma, former deputy head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak, who fled Ukraine last year.

Even before information about the Midas operation became public, and its key figure Timur Mindich fled to Israel, materials began to appear in the press linking the little-known Alliance Bank with the President’s Office. The chain stretched to Rostyslav Shurma, who was then still deputy head of the Presidential Office and responsible for the economic bloc.

No details about an impending storm were published at the time — the first materials about Rostyslav Shurma’s connection with Alliance Bank appeared in the spring 2024 of the year — but probably these investigations were the result of relevant “leaks.” Who made these leaks is unknown, but the information was presented very selectively and purposefully. This was confirmed by events in November 2025, in which Timur Mindich was the hero, and Andriy Yermak was forced to leave the post of head of the President’s Office.

In publications about Rostyslav Shurma’s connection with Alliance Bank, it was claimed that the bank itself is a regular “washing machine” for financial flows stolen from the Ukrainian budget, and the bank is shielded from law enforcement interests by people from the Bank Street. Specifically named was Rostyslav Shurma. The same materials also mentioned Ukrenegro, which at that time was already under NABU and SAPO scrutiny investigating losses in that structure and money withdrawal from it.

Even then investigators drew attention to the strange attitude of the National Bank toward Alliance Bank, which clearly “turned a blind eye” to numerous violations by Alliance. For similar violations, many Ukrainian banks lost licenses, but Alliance Bank faced only small fines and warnings. Investigators claimed that such regulatory leniency toward Alliance Bank was the handiwork of Rostyslav Shurma, who did everything to keep the bank from losing its license.

In a number of publications, Alliance Bank was named an element of a large-scale scheme for laundering and moving questionable cash flows. In addition, it was claimed that the owner of Alliance Bank Oleksandr Sosys is a nominal figure, and in fact the bank belongs to the head of Alliance’s Supervisory Board, Pavlo Shcherban, closely connected with Rostyslav Shurma. Also noteworthy was the recurrent “clearing out” of such materials, which indirectly confirmed the truth of the investigators’ statements.

Symptomatic in terms of Alliance Bank’s involvement in money withdrawals from Ukrenegro is the case of the head of the Northern Court of Appeal Economic Court Oleg Krypun, who had to resign last year after the press took an interest in his property. Here everything is classic: the judge’s property was many times his official income.

After the scandal erupted, some details emerged about the cases overseen by Judge Krypun. Among them were Alliance Bank and Ukrenegro: it turned out that the Northern Court of Appeal Economic Court, chaired by Oleg Krypun, stamp-made decisions in favor of Alliance Bank, prohibiting it from paying debts to state enterprises. Among such debts was Ukrenegro, and the total amount that the bank “earned” in this way was in the billions of hryvnias.

In this same context the surname Rostyslav Shurma was mentioned, without whom sources claimed it would have been impossible to “overthrow” the previous leadership of Ukrenegro, which did not want to participate in schemes with Alliance and Shurma. Notably, the court’s decision concerns money allocated for repair and protection of critical infrastructure amid constant shelling and outages.

Although there are no official documents confirming Rostyslav Shurma’s influence on Alliance Bank and his authorship of schemes for siphoning billions from the state through this bank, it is important to understand: theories about his involvement have gained wide resonance in the independent internet sector and among critics of large financial-political clans.

About how close these theories are to reality, we will soon learn — Mindichgate’s investigation is by no means stopped and is in an active phase. And the investigation will inevitably have to examine also episodes with 1,2 of a billion hryvnias that Alliance Bank refused to return to the state Ukrenegro.

Even more so, after Rostyslav Shurma’s flight and the disappearance of his boss Andriy Yermak, a major redistribution of flows looms. And during this redistribution we have a chance to learn a lot about the “paparaders” who enable Ukraine to enter winter almost without electricity.

At the same time, it will be interesting to trace the fate of Alliance Bank, which lost its key protectors at the level of the Presidential Office. And, although Alliance Bank is not mentioned in official press releases or court documents as a participant in a scheme directly tied to Mindich, the totality of factors connected with it shows that the bank had serious issues with financial control, but these did not have consequences for Alliance. In addition, publications about the influence of politically significant figures on the fate of the bank add context to the overall picture of interactions between financial and political elites. All this makes Alliance Bank a promising object for investigations into financial flows in general and Rostyslav Shurma’s involvement in these flows in particular.