Yes, a well-known Ukrainian journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the publication Censor.net Yuriy Butusov posted an impressive post on his page in social network. According to which, the country was overwhelmed by the total lawlessness of a group of raiders “in uniform” who, under far-fetched pretexts, without taking into account the presence of economic and legal disputes, initiate criminal proceedings, conduct searches, paralyze business, bringing an already extremely difficult economic situation to a complete collapse. Next, in the original language:
“A group of racketeers in the uniform, unfortunately, of the National Police in the style of Tatarov is giving nightmares to an entrepreneur and a volunteer who creates jobs in production. More than 100 people in uniform, instead of replenishing the units in the battle for Bakhmut, are sent to the enterprise and its owners to squeeze money or decisions from the entrepreneur in favor of another company. This is just bullying and a shame for the state. The well-known businessman Oleksandr Sokolovsky wrote a post in defense of the entrepreneur, apparently there are no other countermeasures available now.”
To the post Yuriy Butusov added a link to the publication of a well-known Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksandr Sokolovskyi, who is outraged by the situation with one of the large enterprises in Zhytomyr region. So, in particular, in his publication it is about a pig farm “Oak wood”, which was completely destroyed at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, but was restored at the expense of funds from domestic investors. And, immediately after the restoration, it became the subject of a fabricated criminal proceeding, which caused the enterprise to be blocked, working capital seized, hundreds of searches, etc.:
“We can lose this war. After all, it goes not only on the contact line, but also on the economic front. So, it seems that an army that was not going anywhere raised its head and went to attack the business, and the werewolves in uniform. The first year of the war, they were scared and sat quietly. Although they did not rush to the front line. But in an hour, the wars endured (after all, for some, official salaries at the expense of surviving taxpayers are a real trifle) and they decided that it was time to “milk business” again. Bells from all sides. Here is one of them.
In these photos, the “Dubovy Gai” pig farm in Zhytomyr region. It was one of the largest enterprises in the meat industry. At the beginning of the war, the Russian ego was bombed by Iskander. You see a funnel, in the depths of which stands its owner Dmytro Oliinyk. It’s an hour ago. And in the second photo (exactly an hour later) it can be seen that the enterprise strategic for food security is being restored. Only now it will be a problem to complete the restoration, since the investment money was taken from Dmitry’s safe by the security forces during the unrestricted search, which I will talk about a little below. The schedule of financial assistance to make the pig farm profitable again includes payment for the completion of the construction of two more buildings, the purchase of livestock, fodder, and veterinary drugs. This investment project cannot be temporarily frozen or suspended. If everything stops now, the pigs will die, only now not from rockets, but from hunger.
Now about the searches and what kind of story this is. I thought that after 24.02.22 such a thing would not happen again in our country. I made a mistake. Like many who defend our country or tell foreign partners about the investment attractiveness of Ukraine after the victory in the war. We are talking about a custom attack by security forces to resolve a dispute between two companies in favor of one of the parties.
Here is what one of the shareholders writes about this dispute:
“…there is a rather ordinary business dispute, where a group of Ukrainian investors consisting of Ihor Mazepa, Ivan Oliynyk and Oleg Vedmid, through a joint venture LLC “Sela Energy” in early 2021, bought the property of a company that has a special permit for gas production at the Mainytskyi gas field in Lviv region in a group of sellers. The payment of the main payment (USD 1.8 million) was immediately made. The investors agreed that the payment of the bonus payment depends on the availability of gas in the field through the procedure specified in the contract. During the development of the field, it was found that there are no expected gas reserves.
However, the previous owners decided to use a formal violation of the procedure for determining the geological result in order to return their share in the company due to an economic dispute. But the problem is that the buyer’s company could not legally find out the presence of gas, which the parties neglected during the conclusion of the contract. Because of this, there is also a dispute about the invalidity of certain provisions of the contract.
Therefore, due to the presence of disputes, the previous owners regard this as evasion of the payment of the bonus payment and wrote a statement to the National Police…”
I will not comment on this for a long time. The new owners bought the gas-producing enterprise “in a beautiful package”. But then it turned out that there is an order of magnitude less gas in the field. The war slowed down many processes, including additional opportunities for mining with the latest methods. This happens in business, this is an absolutely standard situation that is resolved in court, sometimes ending in a compromise even before the end of court appeals, which can take a lot of time.
But here the seller decided to “speed up the resolution of the issue” and on April 5, 2023, wrote a statement to the National Police. And then the most interesting begins.
Literally immediately, criminal proceedings are initiated. No one cares that the court disputes are going on and no decisions have been made by the courts yet. And already on April 12, the Main Investigation Department of the National Police formed a group of investigators consisting of 23 people!!! In 2 (!!!) days, the Office of the Prosecutor General will appoint 8 (!!!) prosecutors to participate in this (already) criminal case! It’s a bit much for an ordinary statement. The speed of the reaction is amazing, especially since the application did not contain any evidence of deception or fraud. Don’t you think that when the country accumulated more than a million unsolved criminal proceedings even before the war and more than 100,000 new ones appeared every hour, hundreds of which hung on every investigator, the priorities should be set a little differently? And all the security forces, who are not at the front, should not be pinching entrepreneurs, but should be engaged in identifying “moles”, traitors, collaborators and corrupt people looting for the war?
And already on April 25, six locations (including the apartment of the 76-year-old mother of one of the investors) are being searched, in which about 100 (!!!) armed men are involved! At the same time, before the searches, there was no failure to provide information, or ignoring subpoenas for interrogations, and all the things that can be justified by such beloved mask-show showdowns. The guys decided not to bother, the war will kill everything.
Along with the order, the security forces apparently decided to make some extra money (and maybe rob, depending on luck) and at one of the locations of the search – in the house of one of the investors (Ivan Oleynyk), who has the status of a witness (!), and not the accused, they decided to illegally seize a significant sum money belonging to Ivan’s father, Dmytro Oliynyk, who lives there. This money was intended for a project to restore a destroyed pig farm in Zhytomyr Oblast. Moreover, the search warrant listed which documents are the subject of the search, but nothing was said about the search and seizure of money. Not only that, during the search Dmitry gave them his income statement. The sum of which is ten times more than the funds found. And he demanded to attach his comments and a copy of the declaration to the search protocol. But when the police, together with Dmitry and Ivan Oliynyky, arrived at the court after the search, it turned out that on the road this declaration magically disappeared and the Pechersk court did not make a decision on the return of the money, they are still with the investigator (and many people know how they can be asked years later take away).
I want to add a little more about Dmitry Oliynyk, one of the most decent and efficient producers, investors and top managers of our country, whose friend I have the honor to be. He is a modest man and never spoke about it.
Since the beginning of the invasion, the Oleinikov family has provided more than 80 million hryvnias to the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Back in March 2022, they purchased the first machine of Finnish steel for plate carriers, and then 3,000 bulletproof vests were sewn according to their order. They were donated to the 72nd Brigade, 112th Brigade, Azov SSO, etc. And just last year, they donated 11 pickup trucks, 75 sets of radios, generators, thermal imagers, sniper weapons, 11 Mavikov drones and much more to the front. And I am silent about the hundreds of millions of taxes paid by Dmitry’s enterprises. After all, he is the main producer and exporter of bottle glass in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the occupiers completely destroyed the Vetropak glass factory in Gostomel, it was the largest in the country. I was there and it was not just a factory, but a modern spaceship, which has no equal…
I have no doubt that we will be able to rebuild everything that was destroyed and not only restore, but also multiply the Ukrainian economy. But for this we need to draw conclusions about why we always only dreamed of accelerated economic development. All because, mentally, for the last 30 years, we have not fundamentally differed from Mentovskoy Russia. With any government, whether it declares it or not, they consider the elite of the country to be the security forces (but not the Armed Forces), judges and those who distribute the budget. And creators and taxpayers have always been in the role of fodder. But little Russia will never defeat big Russia. And even if we manage to push the enemy away from our land, but we do not fundamentally change inside, then all the sacrifices were in vain. And those who died will never forgive us for this…”
We will remind that similar raider attacks began to be systematic in nature. Yes, lately, Ukrainian entrepreneurs are well-known Dmytro Buryak and Konstantin Kryvopust found themselves in a situation similar to the above Yuriy Butusov – fabricated criminal proceedings, complete shutdown of enterprises, total seizure of assets, hundreds of searches…
Considering the above, a logical question arises: “what did the Maidan stand for, if not for ending the total “nightmare” of business?” However, Otto von Bismarck was probably right: ““Revolutions are conceived by geniuses, made by romantics, and reaped by scoundrels”.” Unfortunately.
