After parts of NABU’s “Midas” investigation into the president’s inner circle were published, Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak ordered law enforcement to prepare a suspicion notice for SAPO chief Klymenko.
As reported by Censor.NET, this is stated in a Ukrainska Pravda article titled “One Battle After Another, or Zelenskyy Between ‘Midas’ and Trump.”
According to UP’s sources, after the publication of the “Midas” investigation, the head of the Presidential Office continued to coordinate the law enforcement agencies controlled by the President’s Office.
At one of the press conferences, SAPO chief Klymenko stated that “Ali Baba holds meetings and assigns tasks to law enforcement agencies so that they persecute and continue to persecute NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors. This is not a normal situation.”
This happened the same week the Mindich tapes were released.
As UP’s sources note, “Ali Baba” is not Yermak’s codename on the tapes but a covert nickname used by detectives and prosecutors in internal communications, derived from shortening Yermak’s first name and patronymic — A.B.
At the end of the first week of Operation “Midas,” according to sources close to the President’s Office, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the heads of NABU and SAPO for a meeting.
However, “the conversation didn’t go anywhere,” an influential official familiar with the course of that meeting emphasized.
Immediately after the attempt to talk, Yermak once again instructed law enforcement to prepare a suspicion notice for SAPO head Klymenko, according to sources in law enforcement.
Mindichgate
- Earlier, Censor.NET reported that NABU was conducting searches at Mindich’s properties; he had left Ukraine a few hours before the raids.
- As reported, on Tuesday, November 4, searches were carried out at one of the branches of Energoatom’s separate divisions as part of a corruption case.
- NABU is also conducting searches involving former Energy Minister Halushchenko and Energoatom.
- NABU and SAPO announced a large-scale operation to expose corruption in the energy sector.
- Current Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk appears on NABU recordings as part of the investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
- Later, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau uncovered an office in central Kyiv belonging to the family of former MP and current Russian senator Andriy Derkach. The office was used to maintain a “black ledger,” track funds, and organize money laundering.
- On November 11, NABU released recordings featuring Minister Halushchenko and Mindich.
- Chernyshov was notified of suspicion of illegal enrichment as part of Operation “Midas.”
- One of the suspects, Dmytro Basov, was sent into custody with bail set at 40 million hryvnias.
- Former adviser to Halushchenko, Ihor Myroniuk, was sent into custody with bail set at 126 million hryvnias.
- The Cabinet of Ministers submitted proposals to the National Security and Defense Council to impose personal sanctions on Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Tsukerman following NABU’s investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
- Earlier, Ihor Myroniuk and Energoatom’s executive director of security, Dmytro Basov—featured on NABU tapes under the nickname “Tenor”—were sent into 60-day pretrial detention.
- Another suspect, Lesya Ustymenko, was also placed in pretrial detention for 60 days.
- The High Anti-Corruption Court set a preventive measure for Ihor Fursenko, a suspect in the energy sector corruption case (identified on NABU recordings as “Ryoshyk”).
- On November 13, the High Anti-Corruption Court arrested Lyudmyla Zorina, with bail set at 12 million hryvnias.
- President Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Mindich and Tsukerman.
