Treason case, where it emerged that Bakanov’s relative prepared for negotiations with Shoigu
Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi District Court has started hearing the case on the merits of the former head of the SBU Main Directorate in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Oleh Kulinich. He is charged with high treason, participation in a criminal organization, and leaving his place of military service in Kherson.
Oleg Kulinich
Until now, Kulinich was known through recordings of his conversations with Vladimir Sivkovich. However, during this hearing, other interesting details began to emerge, in particular about the former head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, which were described by the Court Reporter.
Kulinich is accused of being part of Vladimir Sivkovich's group. Even before joining the SBU, since June 2019, he had been working for Russia, passing information about the SBU's work to Moscow and obstructing the work of counterintelligence with personnel changes.
As you know, it was after Kulinich's detention that Zelenskyi's childhood friend Bakanov lost his position as head of the SBU.
But in the summer, the BBC published a text saying that Kulinich's case could fall apart. After all, the whole thing is actually built around recordings of conversations.
As Iryna Saliy writes in her article, law enforcement officers allegedly restored the conversations between Sivkovych and Kulinich from deleted recordings on a flash drive, which was found a month before Kulinich's detention, on 20 June 2022, during a search of a house in Kyiv at 5 Peredova Street "on the third floor in an apartment where no one lived".
The SBI acknowledges that these conversations with Kulinich were recorded on his iPhone by Sivkovych himself. These files were then transferred to the FSB, but it is unclear how they ended up in the Kyiv apartment.
However, a hard drive was found in Kulinich's car with 7 files on it, completely identical to those found in the empty apartment.
Despite the fact that Kulinich's lawyers are going to deny the possibility of using the flash drive as evidence without the original media, the defendant himself stated in court that the information on the flash drive concerns not only him, but also President Zelensky, his wife, the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, Serhiy Shefir, an aide to the president, Prime Minister Shmyhal, Oksana Markarova, who is the ambassador to the United States, and former SBU head Bakanov.
Moreover, Kulinich quoted a fragment from a report to the FSB from the same flash drive.
"Contact has been established with C (advisor to the head of the SBU Bakanov, Zelensky's financial partner, Oleksandr Belyaev, who carried out certain instructions on behalf of the president and was an active participant in Zelensky's election campaign), who is a trusted and very close to the president of Ukraine. Last week, on 2 June 2019, at the president's dacha, he initiated a conversation with S, where Zelenskyy said that he had met with a number of influential figures in Ukrainian politics about a channel of communication between them, and about the possibility of joining Russia. The president believes that the need for such a channel is long overdue. However, he advises against meeting and trusting anyone, and suggests that S. lead this process. As a first step, S. was instructed to take control of the head of the Servant of the People party, Razumkov, and the party organisation, and asked President Belyaev to check the loyalty of all candidates for positions in the Ukrainian government, including the head of the DPR border troops. Zelenskyy also instructed Belyaev to provide all necessary assistance and to involve the head of the SBU, Bakanov, in the fulfilment of the tasks. The President of Ukraine did not hide his other goal - he would like to take advantage of Belyaev's experience as a major businessman and provide him with full assistance in becoming his own oligarch. Zelenskyy assured Belyaev that he was ready to make all the necessary appointments to key positions on his behalf, so that it would help to establish a closed channel of communication with the leadership of the Russian Federation. The president set Belyaev's first task as finding ways to release Ukrainian sailors from captivity."In view of theabove, I consider it expedient to hold a meeting between Belyaev and the representative of the top Russian leadership, Shoigu, in order to discuss the possibility of Russia's influence on the leadership of the LDPR in order to stop hostilities, disengage troops, establish closed negotiations, promote our people to key positions, such as the SBU, the National Guard, the border guard, as well as to the position of a representative for the settlement of relations with unrecognised republics," Kulinich announced in court.
In view of this, Kulinich himself admits the veracity of the material on the flash drive. It is all the more important to recall which Alexander Belyaev he is talking about.
And we are not just talking about Bakanov's adviser in recent years, but also his long-time partner and relative.
In 2020, businessman Ihor Tynnyi claimed that 15 criminal proceedings against his companies were related to the personal revenge of the then head of the SBU Bakanov and his business partner and relative Belyaev.
Some 14 years ago, Tynnyi bought a troubled asset, the Martsynkivska HPP. To be more precise, he bought 70%, while 30% belonged to the same Alexander Belyaev and his partner Lazutin (known to Ukrainians through Geo Leros' video, where a drunken Lazutin talks about Bakanov's younger years).
In short, through a series of frauds, Belyaev and Lazutin tried to squeeze the Tynnya HPP.
Nothing came of it. In the end, the director of the hydroelectric power plant was convicted of property fraud. He received a suspended sentence and testified that he had been persuaded to rob the majority shareholder by the minority shareholders - the same Belyaev and Lazutin. Somewhere in the middle of the trials, a lawyer and a relative of Belyaev's by marriage, Ivan Bakanov, surfaced for that hydroelectric power station. (Oleksandr Belyaev's wife Svitlana and Bakanov's wife Oksana Lazarenko are sisters)
Tynnyi then took back two more hydroelectric power plants from this company, which they leased from the state for a pittance.
"These three talented scammers leased 6 small state-owned hydroelectric power plants - 4 in Poltava and 2 in Kyiv. They rented them for ridiculous amounts of money. Less than two thousand dollars a year is nothing at all. The scam was that the subject of the lease was not the operating hydroelectric power plants, but allegedly only their premises, which is why the price was so low. ... Then we wrote statements about the crime everywhere. They definitely caused more than a million dollars in damage to the state. When the fraud at the state-owned hydroelectric power stations became known, the state put them up for privatisation, and we bought them at a SPFU auction. And these gentlemen became my tenants, with whom I broke off relations," the businessman told Censor.NET in an interview two years ago.
Bakanov had every chance to go to jail after these stories, but evil tongues say that several visits by Vladimir Zelensky to the then head of the SBU, Khoroshkovsky, and the head of the Interior Ministry, Lutsenko, saved the situation.
When Bakanov came to power, he called the story a raid, and Tynnyi immediately received cases against him.
Meanwhile, Belyaev became an official adviser to the head of the SBU, Bakanov. For some unknown reason, he was also granted state protection and included in the so-called stop lists in the registers.
This means that everyone who was interested in Mr Belyaev was monitored by the SBU.
Already in 2020, it was known that Belyaev made at least 13 trips to Moscow via Minsk during the war with Russia, in 2015-2020. He also travelled to the occupied Crimea at least once to check on business there.
And now, from what Kulinich read out, it appears that Belyaev was a negotiator with Moscow and was being prepared for a meeting with Shoigu.
Nevertheless, in the summer,BBC News Ukraine published a story stating that the Kulinich case could fall apart.
That the former head of the SBU in Crimea, Oleh Kulinich, is not involved in the case of the occupation of Kherson region, the former head of the SBU Internal Security Department, Andriy Naumov, is not involved in the case of high treason, and the former head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, was not questioned by investigators at all.
Ivan Bakanov
According to the BBC, the investigation found no evidence of Naumov's involvement in cooperation with Russia over the course of a year. Sources in law enforcement agencies claim that the version of Naumov as a "tra itor" was hasty. They say that "Naumov is about clean economy, not high treason".
Investigators also had doubts that the 'Hunter' from the Kulinich-Sivkovich intercepts, on whom Russia had pinned its hopes, was Naumov.
According to the BBC, investigators have never summoned Bakanov, although his testimony could shed light on how Kulinich worked, what information he passed on to the SBU leadership, and whether he really left Kherson for Kyiv without an order on 24 February 2022. Bakanov then refused to comment on the case at the request of the BBC, and soon received a lawyer's licence.
In view of this, it is likely that Kulinich will be the only one guilty, not Bakanov and his relative Belyaev and the purse (the name of Naumov, who oversaw corruption schemes at the customs on behalf of the SBU).
Therefore, Kulinich has a motive to frame the other defendants in the flash drive. He has already announced that he will demand that Naumov be interrogated (after he returns from prison in Serbia).
One way or another, the actions of the State Bureau of Investigation and the Security Service of Ukraine will now be completely unclear, as they will not continue to question Bakanov. There are too many questions to ask the president's friend - from smuggling corruption to high treason. After all, Ukrainians have the right to know where their SBU chief was on 24 February 2022. And why the door of his office had to be opened with his feet to follow the procedures prescribed by law.
Tetiana Nikolayenko, Censor. NET
