‘Of Course He Was Paying’: Former Ukrainian Business Leader Accuses Top Zelensky Adviser of Bribery
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A top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing renewed corruption allegations after an exiled Ukrainian business leader claimed the man worked for him for years as a go-between handling payments to Ukrainian officials.
"Tatarov used to solve all issues with law enforcement” - that’s what Oleh Maiboroda, the former executive director of Ukrbud Development, one of Ukraine’s largest construction companies, told Western media on Tuesday about Oleh Tatarov.
Once a lawyer, Tatarov now serves as Zelensky’s top adviser on law enforcement and security agencies, a position he’s held since 2020. However, according to Maiboroda, Tatarov was running bribes for him for the five years before he took the job for Zelensky.
The lawyer’s connections across the Ukrainian legal system, from police officials to judges and prosecutors, made him the perfect man to smooth over the approval processes for Ukrbud’s many promising construction projects.
"Of course he was paying,” Maiboroda said. "He was giving them money so these arrangements were done … He knew about law enforcement and warned us to be careful about saying almost anything on the phone.”
The former Ukrainian business leader showed to Western media a list of bribes allegedly paid by Tatarov, totaling some $1.8 million.
Oleh Yuriyovych Tatarov (born August 31, 1982), Ukrainian lawyer and top adviser on law enforcement and security agencies to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since 2020
Maiboroda has himself fled Ukraine and currently lives in Vienna, where he hopes to stay safe from corruption charges against him in Kiev.
Tatarov is no stranger to such accusations, either: a previous case, brought by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Anti-Corruption Action Center’s (AntAC), claimed he had bribed a forensic expert on behalf of Ukrbud, even going so far as to publish the WhatsApp conversation in which Tatarov agreed to the bribe. However, the case was closed in April 2022 on procedural grounds.
“The discussion on the incumbent president’s values is over,” Vitaly Shabunin, the head of AntAC’s executive board, said in 2021. “Volodymyr Zelensky shares Tatarov’s values. This means that Zelensky ... doesn’t see any problems in Tatarov’s corruption-related crimes.”
Zelensky has stood by his man through the tribulations, refusing to fire or even to condemn Tatarov despite citizen petitions like the one AntAC organized, with more than 25,000 signatories.
Kiev, which hopes to join the European Union and NATO, has struggled with endemic corruption that promises to not just frustrate its admission hopes, but which endangers the flow of Western weapons and financing to Ukraine as well. To that end, Zelensky has made statements condemning corruption and pledging to crack down, and sweeping firings have “cleaned house” across bureaus such as the Defense Ministry, where the firings have reached the highest ranks.
Last month, Zelensky fired all 24 of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment offices, which are awash with accusations of corruption, including that dozens of recruitment officers have accepted bribes to exempt eligible men from being drafted into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Oleksiy Reznikov was fired as defense minister, and on Monday, Zelensky fired all six deputy defense ministers. Reznkov’s replacement, Rustem Umerov, is himself under investigation for what NABU calls “gross violation of labor laws” and that he and his deputies "took actions aimed at concealing the facts of theft of state property" while he was head of the State Property Fund (SPF).
29 August 2023, 21:25 GMT
No accusations of corruption have been brought against any of the former ministers, but the AntAC spoke of the terminations as a “positive step” toward cracking down on corruption and improving accountability.
“The ministry of defense is one of the least reformed ministries in our country, and it is not able to cope with the challenges of the war,” AntAC executive director Daria Kalenyuk told a US newspaper on Monday, adding it was timed to coincide with Zelensky’s trip to Washington, DC, where the president hopes to shore up US support for his government.
A small but growing faction of the Republican Party is openly questioning US support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. While some have demanded audits and better accountability for the tens of billions of dollars in aid flowing to Kiev, others have demanded the support halt entirely, especially in light of the disastrous Ukrainian counteroffensive this past summer.
“Many countries are sending major resources to Ukraine, and rightly so, but governments and populations will soon lose patience for that if there are not signs that the government is serious about fighting corruption,” an anonymous Western diplomat in Kiev told British media.
“If Ukraine expects its international partners to stay the course, it needs to show the world it’s serious about building real institutions and stamping out corruption,” the diplomat added.
