Kravchenko stopped at Polish border over NABU and SAPO flag but allowed through after call from Kyiv – media
Then Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko was initially denied permission to cross into Poland through the Shehyni checkpoint because of a flag from NABU and SAPO, but was eventually allowed across the border after a phone call from Kyiv.
This is according to an investigation by Ukrainska Pravda, Censor.NET reports.
Border crossing
According to the outlet’s law enforcement sources, Kravchenko’s passport was taken at the border checkpoint and was not returned for a considerable time. The reason was reportedly a flag from NABU and SAPO in the border guards’ database.
"Later, the same sources insist, the border guards received a call from Kyiv and allowed Kravchenko to leave for Vienna, where a security detail from a security service in Vienna may already have been waiting for him," investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkach noted.
Who helped Kravchenko in Vienna?
The outlet found that Odesa businessman Volodymyr Halanternyk, who features in two cases handled by NABU and SAPO, may have helped Kravchenko settle in Vienna. People who reportedly work for the businessman gave statements against the Ukrainska Pravda journalists who were looking for the former prosecutor general.
According to Austrian investigation records, while questioning the Ukrainska Pravda journalists, law enforcement officers checked the residence register and confirmed that the person they were looking for was registered at the specified address.
Ukrainska Pravda also suggests that Kravchenko may have been under the protection of Austrian security services.
Kravchenko’s resignation
- Earlier, Ruslan Kravchenko said he had signed notices of suspicion against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and a person close to the head of the SAPO.
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the Verkhovna Rada to immediately support Ruslan Kravchenko’s dismissal as Prosecutor General.
- NABU and SAPO called Kravchenko’s actions a continuation of a systematic attack on anti-corruption bodies.
- According to the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, Kravchenko left Ukraine on the night of September 14.
- The Prosecutor General later said he was currently abroad on a business trip.
- According to Censor.NET sources, Kravchenko registered his trip abroad as an official business trip to Brussels.
- The Prosecutor General later said that NABU Director Kryvonos is suspected of fictitious adoption to evade criminal liability.
- On September 14, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the suspension of Ruslan Kravchenko as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
- The Prosecutor General’s Office denied reports that Semen Kryvonos had allegedly been served with a notice of suspicion.
- Kravchenko accused NABU of trying to have the notice of suspicion against the bureau’s director, Semen Kryvonos, revoked through backroom arrangements.
- On 15 September, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree dismissing Ruslan Kravchenko from the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
- Kravchenko himself said he had travelled abroad to, as he put it, "inform international partners about the real state of affairs within the anti-corruption agencies".
- On September 24, Ukrainska Pravda reported that it had found Kravchenko in Vienna, the Austrian capital. According to the publication, he and his wife are registered in Austria at the address of a company’s office. Among other activities, the company sells pre-registered companies.
Mykhailo Tkach’s detention in Austria
- On October 8, Mykhailo Tkach, head of Ukrainska Pravda’s investigative journalism department, was detained in Vienna while carrying out an editorial assignment to locate fugitive former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.
- The editorial team considers the detention unlawful and demands the journalist’s immediate release and an official explanation of the Austrian law enforcement officers’ actions. At the time of the editorial team’s statement, the fate of Tkach’s colleague Yaroslav Bondarenko, who had travelled with him, was unknown.
- Earlier, Ukrainska Pravda published Tkach’s investigation into former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko’s whereabouts in Vienna, where, according to the outlet, he and his wife had registered in Austria’s residence register.
- On October 9, it emerged that Tkach had been released. He later posted a photograph on social media with his colleague Bondarenko, who had also been released.
- The Vienna public prosecutor’s office later said that Tkach and Bondarenko had been detained on suspicion of espionage, but the suspicion was not substantiated.
- Tkach said that armed, masked men smashed their car windows, dragged the journalists onto the road, and that one of the assailants pressed his knee against Tkach’s neck. According to him, he and Bondarenko were accused of spying on behalf of Ukrainian military intelligence, participating in a criminal organisation and causing harm to Austria. He said they were given no explanation of the grounds for the accusations.
- The Vienna public prosecutor’s office later said that Tkach and Bondarenko had been detained based on eyewitness accounts that three people had been observing the same location during the same period.
