Schemes for One Hundred and Eighty Million and an Honorable Exchange of Roles Between Suspects and Detectives

Investigations of top corruption in Ukraine do not guarantee respect for the law and protection of rights, while the organizer of billion-dollar schemes and former adviser to the Bankovaya Artem Shilo elegantly exits the courtroom after an approved settlement at the LAC, and morning searches strike the detectives who actually dismantled his back office at Ukrzaliznytsia. The signature of the attorney general on sanctions, arrests of colleagues in custody, and the domestic jurisprudence rule “Code of Criminal Procedure for the fool” plainly demonstrate: in the state procurement system, the most dangerous thing is not stealing two hundred million, but accidentally breaking the barrier for the right people.

At the beginning of October, the High Anti-Corruption Court approved a plea deal with former adviser to the presidential office and an employee of the Security Service Artem Shilo in the case of misappropriation at JSC Ukrainian Railways (UZ). The case concerns the operation of the back office at UZ, which regulated tender procurements of transformers and cables carried out in 2021–2023 years. The amount of losses to the state in the schemes was 182 million hryvnias, the publication ZN.UA notes.

During the investigation, Parliament sought to deprive the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) of powers, and the SBU and the Office of the Prosecutor General announced suspicions against two National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) detectives — Ruslan Magamedrasulov and Viktor Husarov, who were later arrested by Kyiv district courts and remanded in custody.

Parallel to the arrests of detectives, in the autumn of last year the Security Service conducted searches of those who investigated Shilo’s case. These were four former detectives who now work in the Ukrzaliznytsia Security Department.

One of them is Taras Likunov. A former prosecutor of Volyn region, he joined NBU in the first cohort of detectives and now heads the personnel security and interaction with law enforcement agencies at UZ. Likunov, together with colleagues, investigated the cases of the “Dubnyvich brothers,” the Odessa organized crime groups involving former city mayor Hennadiy Truthanov, businessmen Boris Kaufman and Oleksandr Granovskyi, as well as the back office of Ukrzaliznytsia organized by Shilo.

The transfer of NAU detectives who investigated corruption at Ukrzaliznytsia to work for the company itself was met with mixed reactions. Why they decided to work where they had recently exposed schemes, and what they managed to change, these questions have remained without adequate public explanations.

Today Likunov looks at NBU from the outside and can assess what is happening in the institution from a distance, including the role of its leadership.

In general, the Ukrzaliznytsia story is one example of how the experience and practices of NBU go beyond the Bureau itself. While opponents criticize the appointment of former detectives to key state positions, these people may gradually change the very genetic code of the state. Whether they succeed or the system eventually changes them remains an open question.

About back offices, changes at Ukrzaliznytsia, and a view of NBU from inside and outside — in an interview with Taras Likunov.

© Vasyl Artyushenko, ZN.UA

About NBU and the role of the director

— Mr. Likunov, let us start from the very beginning. What in 2015 year forced the prosecutor of Volyn region to drop everything and move to NBU?

— It was a chance to join active changes in the country. At that time I had already worked three years in the prosecutor’s office and realized that prospects there were very bleak. The work was interesting, but it was turned into a fiction and formalism.

Because I came to the prosecutor’s office from the university, where I learned how a prosecutor should protect the law. But at work they tell you: “Code of Criminal Procedure for the fool, and you listen to what the prosecutor says.” And this is said by city prosecutors’ leadership. Maybe a joke, but a very real one.

The Bureau has high integrity standards. It’s clear that there are no angels among detectives. Everyone makes mistakes. However, the level of integrity and professionalism cannot be compared with other investigative bodies.

I did not expect and did not think that NBU would reach such a level of investigations in the country as we have today. I joined the Bureau as a leap into the unknown. When I passed the competition and decided to resign from the prosecutor’s office, a deputy prosecutor called me and asked why I was leaving, because, in his words, it is an unconstitutional body and it will be dispersed in two years.

And when I became a detective, found a new job, I thought the hardest part was over. There was such naivety in 2015 year. Then it was only the beginning. And the first cases we worked on brought us back to reality very quickly.

— The core of NBU is a team of detectives, while the director’s role is primarily strategic and representational. At the same time, the requirements for the head of an anticorruption body must be particularly high. The former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who, facing suspicions of involvement in covering up the activities of fraud call centers, after fleeing Ukraine published investigative materials about the director of NBU Semen Kryvonos in his Telegram channel. Do you think Kryvonos should publicly and substantively answer these allegations? And how do you think this situation affected NBU?

— Much depends on where NBU should move. And that choice depends on the team’s leadership. 90 percent of the Bureau’s work is detective work, which the director can influence through his administrative role. However his influence is much smaller than that of the prosecutor, for example. And the prosecutor is a key figure in any investigation, whether it is a normal criminal case or a case related to corruption.

NBU will not be led by a person who does not meet the Bureau’s own standards of integrity. And now the NBU team has formed a standard of integrity that, like a living organism, applies immunity procedures and simply ejects from this social sphere those who do not meet the standards.

Let us look at the facts that Kravchenko obtained from somewhere. How much do they affect any detective investigations? How do they affect investigations within operations “Carthage,” “Mine,” or “Forrest Gump”? In my opinion, they do not affect at all. Can we find crystal-clear people for all positions in the country? Probably not.

So I do not care to hear Kryvonos’s answer to what the Office of the Prosecutor General accuses him of. What happened — when Kravchenko spoke about the prosecutor’s investigation — instead stopped the government from pressuring the director of NBU and blackmailing him. And currently the situation for society and for Kryvonos himself is better than before these facts were made public.

— Ukrainian investigative bodies use various forms of communication with society in their work. One of them is presenting the results of investigations. The most questions about this presentation to NBU. Perhaps NBU is criticized more for these videos than for the schemes they disclose and publicize to society in these videos. What did the media side of NBU’s work mean to you? And why does NBU do this despite the criticism?

— These videos are a mandatory element of NBU’s work. I personally have a negative attitude toward publishing conversations of covert investigators (of investigative actions) because opponents of NBU are not stupid, and they learn from it. However, I will tell one story.

There was 2016 year, we had just started working in the Bureau. Detectives come to a search, knock on the door, from the other side of the apartment they ask: “Who is this?” Detectives say: “NAZBU.” In response: “Who?” Detectives: “National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.” And the question is: “What is that?” And then the detectives had to say: “Police, open up.” This is a real dialogue between a detective and the person at the door during a search.

Today the name “Carthage” and the acronym “NBU” are known to everyone. Especially to those involved in corruption cases. This is the path the Bureau has gone through in 10 years.

Once we were stalking a very cautious defendant to record his conversations. After a few months of work we managed to obtain recordings totaling only 10 minutes of his conversations, and in those 10 minutes he mentioned NBU twice. That is how much they fear us.

With the help of these videos, detectives inform society about what they have discovered and obtained during investigative actions. Because society is a key stakeholder of NBU. Detectives work for society. And if NBU does not inform society, they simply do not have the right. And if NBU does not do this, society cannot assess whether it needs exactly this NBU.

And in the summer 2025 year, in Kyiv’s Franko Square, people with cardboard signs demonstrated that they need such an NBU.

About the Ukrzaliznytsia back office and the role of Kubrakov

— 2020 year, there was a discussion between Ukrzaliznytsia and NBU about corruption in the railway. Among its participants was the UZ Supervisory Board member Serhiy Leshchenko, who said: “The head of the Security Department is the second most influential person in the company… The internal security department of UZ… there is essentially a representative from each power vertical.” When you joined UZ, was this scheme, as Leshchenko described, preserved?

— At that time yes. Historically, the Ukrzaliznytsia security department was headed by former law enforcement officers. It was some police, some SBU. The department was led by the former Shilo manager — Eduard Kritsin, an SBU alumnus. He headed this structure and built a vertical for himself.

Artem Shilo (center) at a meeting of the VAKS with a preventive measure to be chosen, April 2024 r.

Center for Combatting Corruption

— How did you learn about the Ukrzaliznytsia back office and how did it all begin?

— Keeping the back office operations secret either makes it very difficult or impossible. After all, the back office in procurement needs to interact with suppliers. There are many suppliers, with different worldviews and different views on processes. Some can work only through the back office and only through extortion. Some have reached a certain level of development and consider this a unacceptable situation in our country. The second category is our partners.

In the case of UZ, 2021 year, NBU had direct information about a group of people who go around and tell suppliers the level of kickbacks. Then we began to learn about the vertical of this structure, how it operates and how decisions are made there.

The more stages the back office controls, the stronger it is. In theory, the back office can cover and control all stages of procurement. The goal of the back office is for the supplier to deliver its goods and for it to be paid. And a share of these funds is passed to the back office as a kickback.

To have the back office functioning, it must create a “common pool” from which it pays money to the links that make decisions in the entire procurement process. A “link” can receive from 500 to 30 thousand dollars per month.

— Does the person who receives 500 dollars have a significant influence on the entire process?

— It does influence, but they may not know about it. Salaries were very low, and, receiving additional payments of 500 dollars from their supervisor, a person could not know how the scheme works overall and that they are a back-office link. There is a pool of people who receive money in an envelope and provide the necessary decisions for the back office, and there are those who perform current work and tasks and do not generate income.

— Could the chair of Ukrzaliznytsia’s board not know that a back office is operating at the enterprise?

— It’s possible. In theory, the back office can operate in partisan conditions.

— However we are not talking about theory; there is a real case involving 180 million hryvnias, and it is hard to sweep under the rug.

— We saw that when the investigation was underway, when back office members realized they were known, they sent signals to stop the back office altogether. But then they decided to resume everything again. Yet the links that supported this back office continued taking money during the periods when they were not allowed to.

A global problem of back offices is systemic corruption. At the head of a back office there is a person who gives the command to bring in and generate cash.

— 2023 year you exposed the first back-office link at Ukrzaliznytsia, but that case did not gain as much public attention then. It became widely known when you exposed the organizer, i.e., Shilo?

— Yes, but up to 80 percent of UZ procurement headships were under suspicion by NBU. We managed to document and prove the facts of criminal offenses against almost each of them.

— However after exposing the back office whose work you stopped, you went to work in UZ in the security department. How did that become possible?

— Then everyone understood what scheme we exposed.

At that time Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov approached Semen Kryvonos with a proposal to find someone capable who could put order in Ukrzaliznytsia’s security. It became clear the security department was heavily integrated into corruption processes. This was an example of political will from Kubrakov. He wanted it, he did it. He wanted changes, understood what exactly, and did it.

— Do you think the presidential office adequately understood what was happening with Ukrzaliznytsia’s back office to allow Kubrakov to replace its leadership?

— I find it difficult to answer this question.

— At Enerhoatom, at the time of your investigation in 2023 year, there was already a back office, and losses to the state in corruption schemes there amounted to 500 million hryvnias. The amount of losses in Ukrzaliznytsia’s back office was over 180 million hryvnias. A notable figure as well. According to NBU materials, the schemes at Enerhoatom were run by Timur Mindich, a close associate of the president. According to your materials, at UZ this was Artem Shilo. Could Yermak have known about the back office at Ukrzaliznytsia?

— He would have known.

The back office that operated at Ukrzaliznytsia in 2021–2023 years was 100 percent identical to the back office at Enerhoatom. Both had conditions where court decisions against these debtors were halted, and it was impossible to recover funds. Barriers existed at every stage. Kickbacks were similar. Both involved a security subdivision in these schemes. In 2023 year we did our homework and eliminated this back office at UZ. Because if we hadn’t dealt with it, 2025 year it could have grown to larger scales.

— It turns out Kubrakov goes to the NBU director and asks him about people who could prevent a back office from forming again at UZ. In other words, the former infrastructure minister had such strong political will that he could “cover the gap,” whether Yermak knew or not.

— The back office was directly covered by the Bureau. Probably among the tasks Kubrakov set for himself was to prevent the creation of a similar back office. And, perhaps, taking NBU people into the Ukrzaliznytsia security department would not allow this to repeat. Maybe that was the logic. But these are guesses.

One of our first systemic decisions was to eliminate the “security barrier.” Previously, security at UZ could block any procurement, for example by using an SBU letter about a “Russian trace” in a supplier with a lower price (as discovered in the investigation into transformer procurements of 2022 year). Now this is gone, because security does not “approve procurements,” but provides professional cautions about existing risks.

Another important stage in eliminating barriers in procurements was a significant narrowing of the list of goods designated for railway use. This product status required providing many additional documents that could not simply be obtained. As a result, competition in bidding increased and procurement prices decreased. This result was achieved after updating UZ’s procurement team, notably with the arrival of Oleksandr Nakhod and with the support of UZ leadership, including Oleksandr Pertovsky.

— In October it became known that the organizer of Ukrzaliznytsia’s back office went to an agreement with the investigation. He must pay money and reveal another person. Since Shilo is the organizer in this scheme, he will not reveal himself. So it should be a suspect in another case. According to ZN.UA, this person is Major General of the SBU Illia Vityuk, accused in a case about purchasing a low-valued apartment. Do you confirm this information about Vityuk?

— I cannot either refute nor confirm this information, because I do not possess it. However, my experience and logic allow me to suppose that it is Illia Vityuk with a probability 99.

On searches by the SBU and the factor of Khristenko

— In the autumn of last year you, your chief Oleksandr Rykovtsev and three other former NBU detectives who now work in UZ’s security department, underwent searches. This was two months after the searches and the detention of NBU detectives Ruslan Magamedrasulov and Viktor Husarov. The SBU conducted the searches. Was this a coincidence?

— In my view, such coincidences do not happen. We were searched to attempt to involve us in Fedor Khristenko’s case and create evidence that he hired us at Ukrzaliznytsia and thereby carried out work for the enemy. It looked as though the SBU wanted to regain control over procurement at UZ. At that time it was known that SBU employees visited Ukrzaliznytsia staff and asked why they did not pay certain contractors for delivered goods. What powers did the SBU have at that moment?

SBU

— How did the searches end? Because a year has passed.

— We were not even questioned. During the search I was served with three summons for questioning. The questioning did not take place, because the investigator postponed it each time. Moreover, my colleagues sent motions to summon them as witnesses. There was no response.

— The motion for the search was signed by the former Prosecutor General Kravchenko. You are not a special subject anymore, as you are no longer a detective, so why would the Prosecutor General sign? In your view, what is the essence of the Prosecutor General’s involvement in these actions?

— Directly with this prosecutor I studied at the Kharkiv National University of Law in the same cohort. We were in different faculties, but since there were few students, our faculties combined for common lectures.

There is no procedural reason for the Prosecutor General’s signature to appear there. His signature did not evoke any emotions in me, but it created the impression that this was not an ordinary search. I decided that this was related to an attack on the NBU, because I had no other explanation. The Prosecutor General does not approve routine motions for searches. 10:54

— Your boss, also a former NBU detective, Oleksandr Rykovtsev, believes that since July 2025 year, there has been a systematic campaign of pressure on NBU detectives, SAP prosecutors, and people who participated in top corruption investigations. He wrote official letters to the head of the SBU and the Prosecutor General. It turns out you were in a situation where there is no one to protect you but society.

— We have only our reputation. Society will not protect us directly. In such cases, the judiciary is key. However, the highest standard of human rights protection in the judicial branch currently sits at the VAKS. There, they heavily police the cases where defendants hire strong lawyers. And for the corrupt, VAKS works; for everyone else — the Pechersky Court, where the court is a theater of the absurd.