Did the new head of the anti-corruption bureau help steal an island on the Dnieper?
Before being elected head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Artyom Sytnik worked in the office of a company involved in a scandalous scam - the sale of an island near Kiev, Kyiv journalists Fyodor Orishchuk and Mikhail Glukhovsky report in an investigation on the website Glavcom.
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In 2011, Artyom Sytnik left the prosecutor’s office. As he wrote in his autobiography, “due to disagreement with the policies of the Yanukovych regime, the criminalization of law enforcement agencies, the curtailment of the fight against corruption...”. From 2011 to 2015, Sytnik worked in the office of a company involved in one of the high-profile corruption scandals in the Kyiv region.
From 2011 until his appointment as head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Artem Sytnik’s workplace was located in office No. 43 on Vladimirskaya Street, 61/11 in the capital. The law firm “Legal Guarantees” is registered here. Sytnik owned a small share in it. The main owner of the company is ex-prosecutor of the Kyiv region Yuri Gaisinsky, father-in-law of Kharkov mayor Gennady Kernes.
However, Legal Guarantees was not the only company registered at the specified address. According to the database of legal entities of the Ministry of Justice, half a dozen more enterprises huddled within the same walls: Korda LLC, the law firms Astra, Business and Law, STV (liquidated in 2011), and the Columbus company.
The Columbus company has a wealth of experience in relations with law enforcement agencies: its history includes arrests of accounts and criminal investigations. Sytnik, now the country’s chief anti-corruption detective, assures that he knows nothing about Columbus. At the same time, for the office manager of Columbus, such proximity did not come as a surprise, unlike a professional investigator. She confirmed that Columbus is located at the same address as Legal Guarantees.
For the former prosecutor of the Kyiv region Yuri Gaisinsky and Sytnik’s partner in the Legal Guarantees office, the Columbus company is no stranger. Firstly, she shares her office with Legal Guarantees, where Sytny himself was located. Secondly, the co-owner of Columbus, Valery Voevodin, is also a co-founder of Legal Guarantees LLC, the namesake of the law firm where Sytnik worked and which is also registered in apartment 43 on the street. Vladimirskaya 61/11. In addition, Valery Voevodin is the head of another Gaisinsky company, Korda, and Nadezhda Voevodina, a partner in Korda represented in courts interests of the Family company, which bought Bezymyanny Island from Columbus. Defended the interests of “Famia” in the courts and and Alexey Shekhovtsov. After Sytnik left, he became Gaysinsky’s new partner in the law firm “Legal Guarantees”.
The connection between the main anti-corruption fighter and the fraud of stealing an entire island in the middle of the Dnieper from the state is obvious. At the same time, 35-year-old Artem Sytnik turned out to be the youngest and one of the most unpretentious candidates for the post of head of the anti-corruption bureau of Ukraine. In 2014, according to the declaration of a successful lawyer, he earned only a little more than 20 thousand hryvnia, that is, he received less than a young teacher who had just started working at a school from the university.
As previously reported by PolitNavigator, The new head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine literally immediately after his appointment became involved in a corruption scandal.
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