Ukrainegate is raging across the United States. The House of Representatives is conducting hearings regarding possible impeachment of Donald Trump, the Democrats are accusing the Republican president in pressing Ukraine with the intent of making Ukrainian prosecutors probe shenanigans of the former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling on launching an investigation into Ukraine for suspicions of its interference with the U.S. presidential elections of 2016.

By interference with elections, the former CIA director understands the so called “case of the Party of Regions black books” orchestrated in May 2016 by Artem Sytnyk, the Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, with the participation of Viktor Trepak, the then First Deputy Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (and now the Deputy Prosecutor General), Sergiy Leshchenko, MP, along with Vitaliy Kasko, a lawyer (now the First Deputy Prosecutor General), and led by Karen Greenaway, the Supervisory Special Agent of FBI in Ukraine.

In 2015, after having found papers deeply within the Security Service of Ukraine, which had been removed from the Party of Regions office set to fire on February 18, 2014, agents of the American intelligence agency (it’s no secret that they feel at home in the building of the Central Office of SSU and even have their own office space there) stumbled upon the notes on handing over ample amounts of money to the U.S. citizen Paul Manafort (millions of dollars for publicity support of the Party of Regions). These were “black books,” in which the cashier wrote down, who received cash and for what purposes. Aside Manafort, other cash recipients were “Ukrainska Pravda” website, MPs, and public servants. Yevgeniy Geller, MP signed for receipt of money intended for Manafort.

Of course, these records had no evidential value, and it is impossible to accuse that same Manafort of receiving cash from the President Yanukovych’s “black books” and evading taxes in his home country. But in March 2016, Manafort became the head of Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign, and his notoriety became a perfect target for compromising Trump himself.

That said, if the records from the “Party of Regions black book” were used by the Trump’s opponents from the Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it would have been normal political struggle. However, it was the U.S. public servants who decided to impede Trump’s chances of winning, in particular, George Kent, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Ukraine, and Karen Greenaway, the Supervisory Special Agent of FBI in Ukraine. Moreover, they did it with the hands of their Ukrainian agents’, whose work was being paid for by American taxpayers. Namely, in May 2016, Greenaway handed over the records from the “Party of Region’s black book” to the Director of the NABU Artem Sytnyk ordering him to publish them on the official website of the NABU and to officially confirm to the U.S. reporters that the NABU is investigating the circumstances of Manafort allegedly taking in cash from the former President Yanukovych. And Kent directed Sergiy Leshchenko, MP, Viktor Trepak, the First Deputy Head of the SSU (who had been already fired from the position of the Head of the Central Department for the Fight Against Corruption and Organized Crime of the SSU because of his outside affiliations with the U.S. Embassy), and Vitaliy Kasko, a lawyer who had to quit the Deputy Prosecutor General’s post even in February 2016 because he was caught in fraudulent appropriation of the state apartment, to fuel a scandal in the media, first and foremost American ones. After Sytnyk had released excerpts from the “black books” on the NABU website, made a couple of big statements, and handed these records over for publishing in “The New York Times,” thereby officially confirming their authenticity, Manafort left the Trump’s campaign, and only by some miracle Hillary Clinton didn’t become the President of the U.S.—so considerable was this blow against her opponent’s reputation.

Even though records from the “Party of Regions black book” have no legal evidential value, no one in Ukraine questions the fact that they are real and contain information about real illegal payments in the President Yanukovych’s close circle. However, from the point of view of the U.S. law, the most important is the goal, which Greenaway and Kent pursued when disseminating, through Sytnyk, the information about Manafort’s wrongdoings—whether it was done in order to bring Manafort to justice or in order to assist Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump in the elections. Of course, in order to investigate Manafort’s activities, an FBI agent doesn’t need to order Sytnyk (besides, the NABU is totally under control of the U.S. Embassy, and it is there where all the important procedural decisions are made) to release the “black books”—by the way, such a release blatantly violates Ukrainian law. Moreover, if Greenaway and Kent wanted to stop illegal activities of the U.S. citizens in Ukraine, they wouldn’t have warned Sytnyk and Nazar Kholodnytskyi, the Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, to release only those records involving Manafort and by no means publish information about taking in cash from Ukrainian oligarchs by another American—Democratic Party activist Gregory Craig who also consulted Ukrainian authorities during Yanukovych’s presidency.

Therefore, if it turns out that Greenaway, Kent, Sytnyk, Trepak, Leshchenko, and Kasko fueled the scandal around Manafort with the intent of compromising Trump, this will be considered as interference with the elections with all the unfortunate consequences for all the parties involved. Thus, Mike Pompeo’s suggestion to conduct appropriate investigation is completely valid. Although, if the investigation gets started, brains of American politicians will shrink trying to figure out Ukrainian intrigues, where intertwined are “Manafort’s case” and luxury leisure of the Director of the NABU at other people’s expense; corrupt dealings of Anatoly Novak, the Deputy Director of the NABU, and the provocation instigated by Sytnyk and Greenaway against Boryslav Rozenblat, MP; criminal proceeding regarding embezzlement of the stabilizing loan by the VAB Bank management and murder of the British citizen Kieran Downes in Kyiv in 2004.

Beautiful Life of the Director of the NABU

On March 14, 2019, Ukrainian MP Boryslav Rozenblat published an audio recording on his Facebook page, in which a person sounding like Artem Sytnyk, the Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, was telling some Mykola that he had been helping Hillary Clinton during the U.S. presidential elections of 2016.

“I’ve been helping him too, well, not him but Hillary… Trump, you know, he’s like, for him, internal affairs dominate international, but for Hillary everything is like, she is of those politicians, that they are hegemony in the U.S. and in the world. For us, it’s sorta better, and for the Americans, what Trump is doing is better. Actually, how come Hillary lost there. It’s when I was investigating black books, we released data about Manafort, the one who was put into jail. Manafort, he was Trump’s head of campaign. I was then, like, for a long time, including, you know, for the black books to be published.”

Soon it turned out that this recording had been made during celebrating the New Year of 2019 in the “Poliske-Sarny” gamekeeping, nearby a town called Sarny in Rivne region. Moreover, the Director of the NABU was having a good time there at other people’s expense on a regular basis, spending substantial amounts on drinking and eating gourmet meals. Once he even crashed two quadrocycles worth $17 thsd. At that, it was the same Mykola who paid for everything, whom Sytnyk was telling about helping Hillary by releasing records about Manafort of the “Party of Regions black books.”

It is worth noting that the “Poliske-Sarny” gamekeeping belongs to quite colorful characters. Its cofounder is Andriy Akimenko, known as the right-hand man and business partner of the crime lord “Cheba,” or Oleksiy Chebotariov, an “alcohol lord” wanted as a suspect in organizing kidnapping and torturing of civil activists Igor Lutsenko and Yuriy Verbytskyi in January 2014. And the person who paid for Artem Sytnyk’s leisure was a Rivne resident Mykola Nadeiko, convicted on December 26, 2005 by the Kyiv Court of Appeal to 9 years of imprisonment for a brutal murder of the U.K. citizen Kieran Downes who had been living in Kyiv at 24-a Mykhailivska St. Before that, Nadeiko had been working as this Brit’s driver, and on November 10, 2004, he and his two accomplices ambushed his employer’s apartment, forced him to open the safe containing $15 thsd., and also took away two cell phones, a luxury watch, a jacket, and a Land Rover. After this, the Brit was strangled, just in case.

After having had spent 6 years behind bars, Nadeiko was set free in 2010 by the order of the Manevytskyi District Court of Vinnytsia Region of December 28, 2010. This order replaced Nadeiko’s imprisonment with a lighter sentence—community service at the convict’s place of work for 2 years with punitive deduction of 20% of monthly earnings as revenues to the state. And soon enough, on June 17, 2011, the former driver gets a job to serve his sentence at the Piratian Delicatessen LLC, which belongs to Oleg Bakhmatyuk’s business empire. Besides, what a position that was—deputy director of security! And on November 29, 2017, Nadeiko, still having unexpunged conviction, moves to another Bakhmatyuk’s enterprise, Agrarian Holding Avangard LLC, as an advisor to Natalia Vasyliuk, the Head of the Supervisory Board, who simultaneously chaired the Supervisory Board of the VAB Bank, also owned by Bakhmatyuk. It is not hard to guess that her maiden name is Bakhmatyuk, because Natalia Romanivna Vasylik is Oleg Romanovych’s Bakhmatyuk sister.

To complete the picture, it remains to name the person who has been providing security for all Oleg Bakhmatyuk’s companies and his personal security for many years, and who hired Nadeiko, previously convicted for assault, so that he could carry Bakhmatyuk’s guests’ bags and pay for their leisure with Bakhmatyuk’s sister money. This is Bakhmatyuk’s childhood friend Anatoly Mykolaiovych Novak, who is the Deputy Director of the NABU, and who put his own security firm S.I.G.-Security LLC (EDRPOU code 35866997) under the name of his wife, Odazhyu Kateryna Ivanivna, and his own security firm “Barrier. Business Security” (EDRPOU code 33882743) under the name of his brother Novak Yuriy Mykolaiovych, as he is not allowed to officially run security business. These very security companies of Novak have been protecting Bakhmatyuk and his business for many years now.

Also, it wouldn’t hurt to explain why on Earth would Bakhmatyuk sister’s Natalia Vasyliuk pay for regular drinking parties of Artem Sytnyk, the Director of the NABU, his deputy Anatoly Novak, and Andriy Kaluzhynskyi, the Head of the Main Detectives Unit of the NABU, in the “Poliske-Sarny” gamekeeping. The thing is that in October 2017, the Main Department of the National Police of Ukraine started a pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceeding registered for embezzlement of UAH 1.2 bln in 2014 of the stabilizing loan issued by the National Bank of Ukraine to that very same VAB Bank where Natalia Vasyliuk was the Head of the Supervisory Board. Anatoly Novak, who owes his whole career to Bakhmatyuk (by the way, it was Bakhmatyuk who introduced Novak to Petro Poroshenko, whom Novak was protecting during presidential elections of 2014, and to Vasyl Hrytsak, who in 2015 became the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine and recommended Novak to work at the NABU), took Bakhmatyuk to Sytnyk, and the matter was resolved—Sytnyk fetched the criminal proceeding regarding embezzlement of the stabilizing loan from the National Police, and transferred it to his friend and godfather of his child Andriy Kaluzhynskyi “to bury.”

In January 2017, this criminal case disappeared deeply within the NABU. Instead, Bakhmatyuk not only rewarded Sytnyk, Novak, and Kaluzhynskyi with pretty penny, but also attached his employee Mykola Nadeiko (to be precise, his sister’s employee, whom Novak introduced to Bakhmatyuk in Sytnyk’s office). And it was Nadeiko who paid for this trio’s leisure, including celebrating the New Year of 2019 at the “Poliske-Sarny” gamekeeping.

Terrible Revenge

It is hard to even imagine, what a range of emotions Sytnyk experienced when he found out that recording devices on the premises of the “Poliske-Sarny” gamekeeping had been planted by his deputy Andriy Novak following the request of Vasyl Hrytsak, the Head of the SSU, and Mykola Nadeiko testified at the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine that it was him who paid for leisure, gourmet meals, and crashed quadrocycles on behalf of the Director of the NABU. However, the wiretapping was illegal, without a court order, but SSU legitimized these recordings with no efforts at all, by releasing them through Rozenblat, MP, who is Sytnyk’s worst enemy and who once fell victim of the NABU provocation. According to Rozenblat, someone allegedly brought a flash drive with the audio file with the conversation to his office. After that, detectives from the Prosecutor General’s Office officially searched the premises of the gamekeeping and officially removed a tape recorder with the original recording planted by some “unknown.”

Participants of the special operation were subsequently awarded. The Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko issued an order that changed the jurisdiction of the case regarding embezzlement of the stabilizing loan by the VAB Bank management, fetched it from the NABU where it hadn’t been investigated, and sent it to the National Police of Ukraine where the case was ended altogether. Regarding Mykola Nadeiko: the Rivne City Court prematurely expunged his convictions by its determination 569/10210/19 of May 31, 2019. By the way, Nadeiko applied to the court with this motion on March 13, 2019, the very same day when Rozenblat miraculously found the flash drive with the recorded voice of the Director of the NABU.

The fact that Sytnyk, following the U.S. Embassy orders, interfered with the U.S. presidential elections and published excerpts from the “Party of Regions black books” is not a criminal offence according to Ukrainian law. A different story is leisure at someone else’s expense. Sytnyk was obliged to declare pecuniary gifts received from Nadeiko. And since the Director of the NABU didn’t do that, the National Police of Ukraine issued a citation for committing corruption offence, and on September 6, 2019, the Sarny District Court found Sytnyk guilty of corruption

It is worth noting that at the time of this publication, the court’s order hasn’t become final. The Director of the NABU appealed the order, but the motion hasn’t been tried in court yet because of Sytnyk’s attempt to blackmail Oleh Poliukhovych, the Head of the Rivne Oblast Court of Appeals. The matter is that in 2015, the NABU caught Poliukhovych accepting a bribe from a lawyer for reversal of the default decision of the Zdolbuniv District Court on deprivation of parental rights. The bribe was passed through the Head of the Zdolbuniv District Court. During the investigation of the criminal proceeding 52015000000000011, the NABU detectives searched Poliukhovych’s office and his apartment (44 Viacheslav Chornovol St., Apt. 67, Rivne).

Pre-trial investigation in this criminal proceeding was ended in March 2016, and the case was taken to trial. However, Poliukhovych’s name didn’t make it to the indictment, and he was never notified of suspicion—it was thoughtful of Sytnyk to remove the Head of the Rivne Oblast Court of Appeals from the case. And now Poliukhovych had to repay the favor—he admitted Sytnyk’s appeal, held the first court hearing on October 8, 2019, and ordered a subpoena to question Nadeiko as a witness on November 22, 2019, with the intent of subsequently reversing the order of the Sarny District Court and closing the administrative proceeding against Sytnyk. But later, Oleh Ivanovych carefully perused our publications, and on November 22 recused himself precisely on the grounds laid out in our paper—because he was a participant in the criminal case investigated by the NABU. So the appeal will now be tried by another judge.

And then Artem Sytnyk, enraged by his deputy’s betrayal, took the offensive. First and foremost, he asked his friend Ruslan Riaboshapka—who at that time had become the Prosecutor General replacing Yuriy Lutsenko—to reverse the order to close the criminal proceeding regarding Bakhmatyuk’s bank and to send the case back to the NABU. Soon, Bakhmatyuk became wanted, and his sister Natalia Vasyliuk and other bankers received notices of suspicion in embezzling the stabilizing loan.

On this occasion, Bakhmatyuk did an interview with “Strana.ua”, assuring that Sytnyk had neither legal nor moral right to investigate this proceeding, as there is an evident conflict of interest—the Sarny District Court found the Director of the NABU guilty of corruption based on the testimonies of Mykola Nadeiko, Natalia Vasyliuk employee, who in her own turn paid for Sytnyk’s leisure:

“Everything hinges,” said Bakhmatyuk, “in fact, on his testimonies. In any civilized nation, such a coincidence shows a conflict of interest, which was well known to the Prosecutor General Riaboshapka at the time when they illegally were transferring the case to Sytnyk. And what he’s doing is a personal vengeance against me for Nadeiko’s testimonies. By the way, I met Nadeiko in the NABU building in the presence of Sytnyk and his deputy Novak. And I think he’s a nice guy whom Sytnyk bluntly framed.”

The next victim was Sergiy Tupalskyi, the closest friend of Novak and father of his child, the Deputy Head of Kyiv Municipal Customs. Novak and Tupalskyi are fellow countrymen, they were both born in Malyi Mydsk village in the Rivne region, went to the same school, served in the Border Guard. In 2012, Novak became the head of the Kyiv division of the ALFA International Anti-Terrorism Department Veteran Association. He made Tupalskyi the member of its board, and the Triumph-SV customs brokerage company was added to the list of association’s sponsors. The company was founded in 2010 by Sergiy Tupalskyi and his brother Oleksandr. It was through Tupalskyi that Sytnyk received bribes from the well-known Ukrainian smugglers, e.g., Vadim Alperin, and Tupalskyi himself repeatedly participated in NABU’s provocations. In particular, he supervised “activists” who, following orders of Sytnyk and Patrick Torkington, the Second Secretary of the U.K. Embassy in Ukraine, in March 2017 were blocking the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv and demanding that Roman Nasirov, the former Head of the State Fiscal Service, be arrested.

In order to force Novak to quit the position of the Deputy Director of the NABU, Sytnyk order to arrest not only Tupalskyi, but Alperin as well. In other words, Alperin basically suffered because of Hillary Clinton. However, as soon as Novak quits (rumor has it that Sytnyk reached a deal with the Office of the President of Ukraine that Novak will be offered a position of the Deputy Director of the State Bureau of Investigations—anything to make him leave the NABU), Tupalskyi, Alperin, and Bakhmatyuk will be able to take a breath. Especially given that the Director of the NABU is not used to living off his paycheck.

As for investigation of the Ukraine’s interference with the U.S. presidential elections of 2016, Sytnyk has little to worry about. Because it is highly unlikely that detectives of the U.S. Department of Justice, or even Mike Pompeo himself, could grasp that whole “fight against corruption” seething in Ukraine under the all-seeing eye of the U.S. Embassy.