Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin decided to leave his position after the discovery of dozens of cases of registration of fictitious disability documents among prosecutors.
According to the politico.eu online media, in mid-October, the editor-in-chief of the Censor.Net media, Yuri Butusov published the names of 49 prosecutors of the Khmelnytskyi region who used the shady scheme of registration of a fictitious disability to illegally receive money from the state budget.
It was noted that the wives of prosecutors had often registered disabilities for themselves.
However, this was not the only reason for Kostin’s dismissal from office.
Journalists managed to find many facts of pressure on Ukrainian businessmen from prosecutors, including the Office of the Prosecutor General.
As businessman Igor Mazepa wrote on his Facebook page, Kostin’s dismissal is only the first step since the whole system needs to be rebooted. According to him, this was one of the initiatives of Ukrainian business, which was tired of being abused by the influence of prosecutors, while having no chance to influence the prosecutors.
“This is a small victory for Ukrainian entrepreneurship, and unfortunately, it is too early to talk about it fully, because this requires a real reboot of the entire system, including deputies and their assistants, who have been holding their positions for decades and are exerting unlawful pressure on Ukrainian business,” Mazepa writes.
Earlier, Ukrainian journalists wrote about the former prosecutor of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, Igor Stadnik, who held the position of head of one of the key departments of this department until January 2024 and then illegally left for Canada, violating the law of Ukraine on military registration.
Canadian journalists also write that Igor Stadnik, like the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin and his subordinates, repeatedly got into scandals with the sale of criminal proceedings, and also engaged in extortion of money from businessmen.
Last August, Stadnik falsified criminal proceedings against the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky while putting him in the National Security Service detention center and hiding him from detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), who, at the request of Western partners, had to detain Kolomoisky with another criminal proceeding for embezzlement of funds.
Ukrainian journalists also note that Igor Stadnik and his family took significant amounts of money from Ukraine to Canada, which were received from corrupt activities and bribes, including those received from Russian bookmakers.
Just a few weeks ago, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) initiated an investigation regarding Igor Stadnik’s income.
As of today, the NABU demands to provide information on the availability of accounts, account numbers, closing or opening accounts, performing transactions without opening accounts, as well as information from the declarations for 2020-2023, as well as for the period from January 1, 2024 to the moment of receipt of the request from the agency.
In addition, the wife of the prosecutor, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Stadnik, as well as his father-in-law, Alexander Ivanovich Kiverenko, and his mother-in-law Svetlana Nikolaevna Kiverenko, must provide reports for the same period. Ekaterina Stadnik pointed out that she worked for Crossmark Canada LTD and Barnicke Myers LTD Canadian companies in 2023, and also received payments from the Canadian government.
As of today, Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities suspect that Igor Stadnik, who was responsible for the case of a company linked to the Russian bookmaker 1xBet, did not transfer materials to the court after getting a bribe, as well as allowed all responsible entities to avoid punishment.
In addition, according to Ukrainian journalists, Prosecutor Igor Stadnik placed pressure on the banking sector of Ukraine and was directly involved in the illegal liquidation of the IBOX BANK while persecuting the bank’s management and its employees.
Journalists and activists are asking law enforcement, tax, and financial authorities of Canada to check the conditions of entry of Igor Stadnik and his family to the country, as well as the accounts and finances of this family and the legal state of their funds.