Zelensky: Ministers from the Carthage case are not linked to the 'Khimprom' cartel

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on 14 November that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) have no claims against the ministers and officials whose names appeared in recordings related to the Carthage operation case. He said this at a briefing with journalists, which was carried by the state agency Ukrinform.

According to Zelensky, he spoke several times with NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors. According to him, he became convinced that "neither Klymenko, nor Vyhovsky, nor Poklad are personally involved in this," and he knows this from law enforcement and anti-corruption bodies, having spoken with all of them several times. The story is very unpleasant, very wrong. But there is an investigation, and he supports it. And there will be further personnel changes. This concerns Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, National Police head Ivan Vyhovsky and SBU chief Oleksandr Poklad.

Zelensky also stated that the anti-corruption bodies confirmed the absence of evidence against Health Minister Viktor Liashko and the leader of the parliamentary faction, Davyd Arakhamia. According to him, he asked NABU and SAP representatives about the names that appeared on the tapes, whether they had anything on them, and he was told that "neither Liashko, nor Klymenko, nor Vyhovsky, nor Arakhamia have any connection to contacts with these people."

Separately, the president dwelt on the transnational "Khimprom" syndicate around which the case is built. According to him, the cartel's operations must be fully stopped by coordinated international action. According to him, such risks exist in other countries as well, they have already "entered Poland, and they are trying to enter Germany," which they discussed, and they have operational information. He suggested that the syndicate operates with the support of foreign intelligence services, in addition to Russian ones: "This area definitely does not work without the support of intelligence services, and not only Russian ones."

On 4 November, NABU and SAP reported a scheme of high-level bribes in which officials of the SBU, the National Police and the Prosecutor General's Office, according to the investigation's version, shielded fraudulent call centers, drug trafficking, counterfeit currency production and illegal tobacco production for a fee. According to NABU, the network was run by a Russian citizen linked to the Federal Security Service (FSB) under the code name "Mexican," who founded the "Khimprom" cartel.

On 13 November, the full bail amount of 65 million hryvnias ($1.5 million) was posted for SBU Major General Serhii Duka, former first deputy head of the SBU department for the protection of statehood. He was detained on 4 November under the code name "Akim" and is accused of threatening detectives with a firearm and of smashing devices with a hammer during searches. Duka's lawyer Yurii Sukhov said that most of the bail was voluntarily raised by SBU employees, and that Duka himself remains an employee of the agency under the protection of the "Alfa" special unit because of alleged threats of Russian assassination attempts.

After the scandal, SBU head Poklad dismissed the agency's employees who were involved, the National Police suspended officers under investigation, and Zelensky submitted a bill on restoring mandatory asset declarations for all SBU employees.