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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
After exposing Artem Shyl’s back office, former NABU detectives moved to work in the state company and changed the way the security service influenced procurement.
Former Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov appealed to the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Semen Kryvonos, asking him to find specialists capable of changing how Ukrzaliznytsia’s security service operates. This happened after the exposure of a corrupt back office linked to former presidential office adviser and SBU officer Artem Shyl. Former NABU detective Taras Likunov, who now heads the department of internal investigations, cooperation with law enforcement agencies, and personnel security at UZ, told this to Tetiana Bezruk in an interview for ZN.UA.
According to Likunov, after the investigation it became clear how deeply the company’s security department was integrated into corrupt processes.
“At that time, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov turned to Semen Kryvonos with a proposal to find him some competent people who could put the security at Ukrzaliznytsia in order. Because it became clear that the security department was heavily integrated into corrupt processes,” Likunov said.
He called Kubrakov’s decision an example of political will for change. After the scheme was exposed, four former NABU detectives who participated in the investigation of corruption at UZ moved to work in the company’s corporate security department. This personnel transfer raised questions because it involved hiring law enforcement officers into a structure they had previously investigated.
Likunov explained that one of the first changes was removing the so-called security barrier — a mechanism that allowed the security service to block procurements. According to him, previously the security service could effectively halt a procurement, in particular by using an SBU letter about a possible “Russian trace” of one of the tender participants. Such a mechanism was discovered during the investigation of transformer procurement in 2022 year.
“Currently that is no longer the case, because security does not ‘approve procurements,’ but provides professional warnings about the risks they contain,” Likunov explained.
Thus, according to him, the security service lost the ability to unilaterally decide whether a procurement would take place and focused on risk assessment. Another step was a significant reduction in the list of goods deemed to be of so-called railway designation. For the supply of such products, the company previously required additional documents that were difficult to obtain. Likunov asserts that reviewing these requirements helped increase competition in tenders and reduce procurement prices.
According to him, the changes became possible after the renewal of UZ’s procurement team, including the arrival of Oleksandr Nakhod, and with the support of the company’s leadership, including Oleksandr Pertsvotskyi. At the same time, Likunov emphasized that the corrupt back office itself was dismantled by NABU detectives, not by the ministry or the new security team.
Speaking about Kubrakov’s motives, he suggested that the former minister sought to prevent the scheme’s restoration after its exposure. However, he cautioned that this was his own assumption. Before the arrival of the new team, the UZ security department was headed by Eduard Krytsin — the former superior of Artem Shyl in the SBU. According to Likunov, Krytsin built his own vertical of influence within the company.
Answering a question about whether the presidential office understood the scale of the back office’s activities and whether it influenced the decision to change UZ security leadership, Likunov said he found it difficult to assess.
In the case of Ukrzaliznytsia’s procurements in 2021–2023 years, the investigation established losses of 182 million UAH. In early October 2026, the High Anti-Corruption Court approved a plea agreement with the investigation concluded by Artem Shyl.
Artem Shyl was notified of suspicion in the spring of 2024. As early as November 2022, the Bihus.Info investigation reported that over ten years in public service Artem Shyl had accumulated assets of nearly $4 million. He was also said to be close to Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleg Tatarov and to those who “monitor the railway.” In addition, Shyl is linked to the appearance of the Russian bookmaker 1xBet in Ukraine.
At the same time, before the suspicion was announced, Artem Shyl was dismissed from his position as a chief in the SBU. According to ZN.UA, the initiator of the dismissal was President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Кубраков попросив керівника НАБУ знайти людей для зміни системи безпеки Укрзалізниці — ексдетектив". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
