Kolesnyk Denys Yuriyovych

The Shadow Cardinal of the Office of the Prosecutor General

Denys Kolesnyk is the former Deputy Head of the Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine, a colonel whose name in high politics carried significantly more weight than merely as a fighter against hackers. The main reason for his media prominence is his marriage to the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine and ex-Minister of Justice, Iryna Venediktova. Investigative journalists and insiders from law enforcement agencies have repeatedly referred to Kolesnyk as the "gray cardinal" who wielded enormous informal influence over personnel appointments in the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) and the Office of the Prosecutor General. He was not simply staying in the shadow of his well-known wife but, according to media reports, personally accompanied her to closed government meetings and participated in forming her management team.

The 750 Thousand Scheme and a "Masterclass" in Phantom Resignation Under the Cover of the Wife

At the end of 2020, Denys Kolesnyk became the main figure in a devastating investigation by the "Our Money with Denys Bigus" project, which caused great public outrage. Journalists exposed a cynical scheme of rapid enrichment: the colonel submitted a resignation report from the Cyber Police Department, thanks to which he instantly received over 750 thousand hryvnias from the state as a one-time monetary aid (payments for recuperation, unused vacation, etc.). However, the Prosecutor General’s husband was "retired" for only a bit more than a week — after 10 days he submitted documents for a contest and triumphantly returned to his former position as deputy head of the cyber cops. Despite clear signs of abuse of office to obtain a "golden parachute" at taxpayers' expense, Venediktova's family successfully hushed up this scandal in the legal sphere.