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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Searches at the National Bank of Ukraine do not relate to the Bank's work.
According to a source from ZN.UA, the investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), through which detectives arrived with searches to the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Andriy Pyshny,'s office, does not directly concern Pyshny's work at the NBU, although it “casts a shadow on the reputation of one of the key negotiators with international partners.”
This is written by the Economics section editor Yulia Samayeva in the article “Friends and Enemies of Andriy Pyshny.”
At the same time, questions arise for those who so desire his resignation, in particular for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
According to sources, the main version is that 33% of the Karpatnaftokhim corporate rights were transferred as a bribe in order to lift the plant from under arrest and prevent its transfer to ARMA. The share was re-registered to a person connected with the authorities — Vasyl Vesely, an adviser to the chairman of the supervisory board of the state-owned Sense Bank. At the same time, Andriy Pyshny, according to the investigation, acted as an intermediary in this scheme.
“Karpatnaftokhim” is a former asset of LUKOIL, which 2017 later passed to Ilkham Mamedov and Ihor Shchutsky. The third covert co-owner was the late former People's Deputy, one of the leaders of the party “Narodnyy Front” and longtime friend of Pyshny, Andriy Ivanchuk. He publicly denied the co-ownership, although Ihor Kolomoyskyi and former head of Ukrsyrp [Ukrsyrp], Mykhailo Labutin, claimed otherwise, the author notes.
Probably the new owners of the enterprise did not want any arrests or transfer to ARMA. However, during the investigation, as the ZN.UA source says, evidence was obtained that Ivanchuk’s partners entrusted the handling of “issues with law enforcement agencies” to him. He, in turn, approached Pyshny, with whom he had known since student days when Ivanchuk needed to resolve this “issue.”
“The investigation thinks that Pyshny himself acted as the intermediary who ensured the implementation of the scheme. The core of the evidentiary base that convinced the court to sanction the search is the proof of Pyshny’s close ties with other defendants in the case, including Vasyl Vesely,” the author notes.
However, proving this will not be easy. First, Ivanchuk is dead. Second, Mamedov and Shchutsky are not in Ukraine. But presumably there is something substantial in those proofs, since the court agreed to such a loud step as a search.
“Another question is why the search was not only at home but also in the NBU premises, if the case in no way concerns Sense Bank, the direct sphere of influence of the NBU head. It is more about Andriy Pyshny’s activity as Ivanchuk’s associate than about the head of the central bank,” the author adds.
The only common thread between Karpatnaftokhim and Sense is Vasyl Vesely, and this thread leads to Bankova Street, which now so strongly desires Pyshny’s resignation.
Tensions between the president and the head of the National Bank existed earlier as well. In August, Zelenskiy publicly spoke about problems in the relationship between the government and the leadership of the NBU, and Bloomberg at that time linked the Bank’s displeasure, in particular, with Pyshny’s close contacts with the International Monetary Fund and the Bank’s tight monetary policy.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Обшуки в голови НБУ Пишного: джерела розповіли, яку справу розслідує НАБУ". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
