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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
People's deputy Vadym Stolar had prepared 300 million hryvnias in advance for bail, planning to post them immediately after the court decision and avoid pretrial detention. That was the preventive measure the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) chose for deputy Vadym Stolar on 11 September in the “Femida” case. According to Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, the deputy’s plan was to deposit the funds without delay and then personally control his business. The publication’s sources believe the deputy’s return to Ukraine had a pragmatic explanation tied specifically to maintaining control over his assets.
Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reports that prolonged absence threatened Stolar with loss of control over his business assets: partners could take advantage of his situation to redistribute them. So he returned to retain his business empire, and one of the former Opposition Platform — For Life leaders, Viktor Medvedchuk, will not forgive him for that. The final terms of the preventive measure are set by the HACC, and afterwards the deputy faces investigations, trial, time, and the possibility of reaching a plea agreement.
The publication cites examples of defendants in other high-profile cases who concluded cooperation agreements with investigators. Examples include Borys Kaufman, Oleksandr Hranovskyi, and Mykola Zlochevskyi, whose cases ended with agreements. In particular, Kaufman’s agreement and those of other defendants provided for one billion hryvnias in restitution, and Zlochevskyi received a fine of 68 thousand hryvnias and transferred more than 660 million to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, the full terms and outcomes of a number of high-profile cooperation agreements remain closed. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) explains this by citing protection of whistleblowers and the interests of other investigations.
It is not excluded that Stolar also hopes for a deal and incriminating testimony — in particular concerning another figure in the “Forrest Gump” case, Maksym Mykytas, who already faces several criminal cases investigated by NABU. However, as journalists note, this is a possible scenario, not confirmed information about negotiations with SAPO.
According to the publication, SAPO is revising its plea agreement policy in terms of setting criteria, transparency, and communication with the media. The current guideline in high-profile cases is actual serving of punishment if the charged article provides for imprisonment. An agreement may allow a reduced term, but not avoidance of imprisonment. The publication cites the example of former Supreme Court head Vsevolod Kniaziev, who, despite reaching an agreement, received an actual prison term.
What the deputy is accused of
Vadym Stolar was notified of suspicion in absentia on 20 August on five articles of the Criminal Code — among them creating a criminal organization, unlawful appropriation of property, forgery of documents, and unauthorized interference with the operation of information systems. For creating a criminal organization the deputy faces imprisonment from 7 to 12 years with confiscation of property, and for interference with information systems during martial law — from 10 to 15 years.
Investigators believe the criminal organization was created by Stolar and former deputy Maksym Mykytas, and that former deputy head of the President’s Office Iryna Mudra may also have been part of it. According to NABU and SAPO, the organization was involved in legalizing funds to pay bail for the former minister of energy and justice Herman Halushchenko, as well as raider seizures of real estate objects in Kyiv through interference with the Ministry of Justice’s information systems.
Earlier Informator reported that deputy Vadym Stolar was charged on five articles within the operation “Forrest Gump” — at the time the suspicion and searches were announced he was abroad, and the investigation established that the criminal organization Stolar and Mykytas created no later than 15 November 2024. On the same day Stolar was notified of suspicion, the High Anti-Corruption Court chose pretrial detention for Mykytas with an alternative bail of 30 million hryvnias. We also wrote that Stolar returned to Ukraine after NABU announced the suspicion — according to sources, the deputy left the country back in July, and the reason for his early departure was reported to be a leak of information about the preparation of a suspicion against him.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "300 млн грн вже готові – джерела ЗМІ пояснили, чому Столар повернувся в Україну". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
