KYIV — Ukrainian authorities opened a criminal case against the country’s former energy minister German Galushchenko one day after he was caught at the border trying to flee the country — the latest charges in a $100 million corruption probe that has ensnared some of Ukraine’s highest-ranking officials and shaken the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Galushchenko, who served as energy minister for four years before becoming justice minister for a short period last year, was arrested Sunday by anti-corruption authorities on the Ukrainian-Polish border. On Monday, authorities said he was charged on suspicion of “money laundering and participation in a criminal organization.”
The arrest is part of an investigation into high-level graft, code-named “Midas.” Other suspects include Timur Mindich, a close friend and former business partner of Zelensky, and Oleksiy Chernyshov, a former deputy prime minister. Authorities allege the group ran a kickback scheme tied to contracts signed with Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, Energoatom.
Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak, resigned in November, hours after authorities searched his home and office as part of the corruption probe. However, Yermak has not been charged, officials said.
The investigation has placed the issue of Ukraine’s seemingly never-ending battle with corruption front and center, and it has rattled Kyiv’s European supporters as the country struggles to defend against Russia’s invasion, which will reach its fourth anniversary next week.
Corruption in the country’s energy sector is a particularly sensitive subject, as millions of Ukrainians are enduring frigid, dark apartments this winter because of Russia’s campaign of missile and drone strikes against the power grid.
On Monday, Ukraine’s air force said Russian forces attacked locations throughout the country overnight with more than 60 drones and six missiles. At least one missile and nine drones pierced air defenses, the air force said in a social media statement.
Some 1,500 buildings in Kyiv are without heat, of which more than 1,000 are expected to remain so until the end of winter because of significant damage to the power grid, Kateryna Pop, spokesperson for the Kyiv military administration, said on Ukrainian television on Monday.
In November, investigators at Ukraine’s two main anti-graft bodies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office — or NABU and SAPO — said they had uncovered a sprawling kickback scheme at Energoatom.
At that point, NABU and SAPO officials said they had worked for 15 months on the case and compiled evidence that included some 1,000 hours of audio recordings. The alleged scheme involved a 10 to 15 percent surcharge on Energoatom contracts “to avoid blocking payments for services rendered … or to avoid losing their status as suppliers,” an NABU statement said.
Members of the group adopted aliases for their communications such as “Che Guevara,” “The Professor,” “Rocket” and “Sugarman.”
Some of the contracts involved building installations to protect energy facilities from Russian air attacks, investigators said.
NABU and SAPO detectives searched Galushchenko’s home in November. Shortly after, Zelensky called for the resignations of Galushchenko and Svitlana Grynchuk, who served as his deputy energy minister and succeeded him when he moved to the Justice Ministry. At the time of the search, officials filed no charges against Galushchenko.
He has not issued any statements since his arrest. Other suspects in the case have denied their guilt.
Mindich, 46, fled the country in November and was filmed by the Ukrainian Truth news outlet in Israel. Sunday’s arrest of Galushchenko, 52, prevented him from doing the same. Under martial law, Ukrainian men under the age of 60 are barred from leaving the country without special permission.
NABU and SAPO did not name Galushchenko in a statement posted on their Telegram channels, but referred to the suspect in the case as “the former energy minister (2021—2025)” — the years that Galushchenko led the ministry.
The statement said that the suspects of the “criminal organization” uncovered by the Midas operated had registered “a fund” in February 2021 on the island of Anguilla, a self-governing British protectorate in the Caribbean.
“The fund was headed by a longtime acquaintance of the participants,” the statement said, “a citizen of the Seychelles and Saint Kitts and Nevis,” who laundered the proceeds. The statement did not name the fund head.
In total, some $112 million was siphoned off from the energy sector while Galushchenko served as energy minister and the money “legalized through various financial instruments, including cryptocurrency and ‘investment’ in the fund,” NABU and SAPO alleged.
Galushchenko and his family received some $12 million of the money, NABU and SAPO said.
“Part of these funds were spent on paying for children’s education in prestigious institutions in Switzerland and placed in the accounts of his ex-wife,” the statement said. “The rest was placed on a deposit, from which the high-ranking official’s family received additional income and spent it on their own needs.”
Stern reported from Mukachevo, Ukraine.
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