KYIV – Ukrainian authorities on October 31 arrested and detained Hennadiy Korban, a longtime business associate and political confidante of Igor Kolomoisky, Ukraine’s second-biggest oligarch.
Arrested at his home in Dnipropetrovsk, Mr. Korban was charged with stealing from the private Country Defense Fund, as well as organizing the kidnapping of two government officials. In his defense, Mr. Korban said through his lawyers that he didn’t steal from the fund, which he himself had created to aid the war effort. He added that he had no involvement in any kidnappings.
Mr. Korban’s arrest sparked mixed reactions among the public, which has been waiting for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to prosecute crimes committed by the oligarchs, particularly those of the Yanukovych entourage. Instead, the arrest of Mr. Korban, the right-hand man to the president’s biggest rival, Mr. Kolomoisky, had sparked concern that selective prosecution is being pursued yet again, this time by another president.
“We were awaiting decisive reforms, not the destruction of his opponents, and those of Oleksandr Vilkul,” Serhiy Rudenko, a veteran political observer for the Espreso television network, wrote on his Facebook page.
He was referring to Mr. Poroshenko’s statement on October 21 promising Ukrainians “decisive steps towards the development of our state” after the October 26 local elections.
Meanwhile, Mr. Vilkul of the Opposition Bloc, sponsored by Donetsk magnate Rinat Akhmetov, will be competing in the runoff for Dnipropetrovsk City Council chair (mayor) against Borys Filatov, a member of Mr. Kolomoisky’s inner circle.
Indeed, numerous observers concluded that Mr. Korban is merely the latest target of the president’s selective justice, which has already taken aim at other political opponents such as the imprisoned Yuriy Syrotiuk, the deputy head of the Svoboda party, and Ihor Moisiichuk, the imprisoned national deputy of Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party.
The difference between them and Mr. Korban is that “the brigade attacked a man with media and organizational resources,” said Petro Oleshchuk, a political science lecturer at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. “And the country has realized that these are repressions that have been occurring for a long time.”
Such resources are the Ukrop party, sponsored by Mr. Kolomoisky, which performed unusually well in the October 26 local elections, finishing ahead of the Solidarity Petro Poroshenko Bloc in cities such as Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia.
Mr. Kolomoisky is also the owner of the 1+1 television network, among the most widely watched in Ukraine.
It became apparent in the days after his arrest that Mr. Korban was expecting it to happen. Suddenly, advertisements on YouTube sprung up in which he discussed his views on freedom, which were recorded before his detention. Mr. Korban’s own personal fortune was estimated at $25 million this year by the nv.ua news site.
Mr. Korban’s arrest came after he unsuccessfully campaigned for Kyiv mayor, which raised his public profile in the capital city ahead of his arrest, observers said. Earlier this year, Mr. Korban ran in a special election in July for a vacated parliamentary seat representing a Chernihiv district.
Winning the seat could have earned him political immunity from arrest, but he lost that election too.
Mr. Korban is charged with stealing 40 million hrv (about $2 million) from the Country Defense Fund to which he claimed to have contributed himself. Investigators will likely want to find out the sources of his funds to finance the war effort, said Mykhailo Basarab, a Kyiv political consultant.
Mr. Korban is also charged with organizing the August 2014 kidnapping of Serhiy Rudyk, the former head of the State Land Agency, and the February 2015 kidnapping of Dnipropetrovsk City Council Secretary Oleksandr Velychko.
Besides Mr. Korban, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers this week arrested Mykhailo Koshliak, the head of security for the Privat Group, which is the holding company for Mr. Kolomoisky’s assets. He was charged in the March 2015 murder of an SBU officer near the frontlines.
Five days after Mr. Korban’s arrest, the SBU announced the arrest of Olena Lukash, a close associate of former President Viktor Yanukovych who served as justice minister during the last seven months of his presidency.
Though her arrest sparked speculation that the Poroshenko administration is seeking to disprove accusations of selective justice, it remained unclear as of November 5 whether she would be detained, as Mr. Korban had been.
Moreover, Ms. Lukash said she had been living in Kyiv for at least half a year, sparking speculation about why she was arrested on that particular day.
“She was just going out for a loaf of bread,” Mr. Rudenko wrote. “A government that treats people like fools is doomed, which is what Yanukovych didn’t understand. These people are supposed to be wiser.”