Ukrainska Pravda investigation: President's Office may have taken control of Ukraine's largest chemical company
The Office of the President of Ukraine is suspected of orchestrating the unfreezing of assets belonging to one of the country’s largest chemical companies, Karpatnaftokhim, in exchange for a stake in the business which was subsequently transferred to a front company.
Source: an investigation by Ukrainska Pravda titled The Great Redistribution: The Return of Overseers and Proxies to the President’s Office
Details: Karpatnaftokhim was raided in August 2022 by law enforcement officers who believed that between 2017 and 2022, the company had funnelled over UAH 5 billion (around US$120 million) to Russia through shell companies. The company's corporate rights and assets were seized by the court. The assets should have been transferred to the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), and the state should have subsequently benefited when, upon completion of the investigation and confiscation process, the assets were either sold to new owners or nationalised.
However, ARMA later stated it had been unable to find a manager for the assets due to procedural errors made by law enforcement officers. As a result, Karpatnaftokhim remained unmanaged for 14 months, and in 2023, the court annulled the company's seizure altogether. Six months later, Andrii Veselyi became a co-owner of the company.
Sources from the State Tax Service told Ukrainska Pravda that Veselyi had officially earned UAH 1.87 million (about US$45,000) over 20 years, plus UAH 2.28 million (US$55,000) as a sole trader. Yet despite these modest earnings, he became a co-owner of one of Ukraine's largest petrochemical and chemical production complexes with an annual turnover of billions of hryvnias.
Ukrainska Pravda’s investigative team tracked down Veselyi’s brother, Vasyl Veselyi, in Kyiv. During a month of observation, his car was seen entering the government quarter several times a week. Political insiders also reported that his vehicle had been spotted outside the premises of parliamentary committees and the Cabinet of Ministers and a few minutes away from the President’s Office and the National Bank.
Ukrainska Pravda sources in the business world say that Vasyl Veselyi, despite having no banking experience whatsoever, has been appointed as an advisor to the CEO of Sense Bank, a financial institution that was nationalised after the full-scale invasion due to its ties with Russia. The business insiders described Veselyi as an "overseer" for the state at Sense Bank.
Ukrainska Pravda asked Veselyi about allegations that he had been given the job of overseeing Sense Bank as a reward for supplying his brother Andrii as a front man for the free transfer of a stake in Karpatnaftokhim for the benefit of the President’s Office.
Vasyl Veselyi denied having any connections at the President’s Office, claiming he visits the government quarter because he "lives there". He also said his brother had bought the share in Karpatnaftokhim with his own money and denied being an "overseer" at Sense Bank, stating that he works there "on a voluntary basis".
When the Ukrainska Pravda team approached Andrii Veselyi, he refused to disclose any details about his acquisition of the Karpatnaftokhim stake.
So far there has been no response from the head of the President’s Office, Andrii Yermak, to Ukrainska Pravda's inquiry. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office has confirmed that a criminal case related to Karpatnaftokhim is under investigation.
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