- Author, Aleks Phillips
- Role, BBC News
Ukrainian authorities have charged a member of parliament with embezzling over £220,000.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) alleged the Ukrainian MP purchased assets far exceeding his official income.
While it did not identify the politician, the Interfax Ukraine news agency and other Ukrainian media outlets named Andriy Klochko as the accused.
Mr Klochko is a member of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
He has not yet publicly responded to the allegations. The BBC has approached him for comment.
In a statement, NABU said that between 2020 and 2021 the MP had acquired assets worth 25m hryvnas (£507,000), while he and his wife’s combined declared income and savings at the time was just 14m hryvnas (£284,000).
That left an unexplained difference of 11m hryvnas (£223,000), prosecutors said.
A joint investigation with Ukraine’s Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office found the MP had purchased three plots of land near Kyiv, five flats in the Ukrainian capital, two other premises, as well as two cars: a Tesla and a Mercedes-Benz.
NABU alleged that “to conceal the ownership of these assets, the MP registered most of them with close relatives” while retaining full control over them.
The anti-corruption agency credited Bihus, an investigative journalism publication, for bringing the matter to light in a series of articles published in 2021 and 2022.
NABU stressed that the MP was considered innocent until found guilty in court.
In 2023, Ukraine was ranked 104th out of 180 countries in a corruption perception index by NGO Transparency International – 12 places up from the previous year.
On Wednesday, Mr Zelensky dismissed Illya Vityuk, head of cybersecurity for the Security Service (SBU).
The decree followed reports that a plain-clothed SBU officer attempted to hand a summons to an investigative journalist, after he published a story claiming Mr Vityuk’s wife had understated the value of a luxury flat she had bought on an official declaration.
The SBU told Slidstvo at the time that Mr Vityuk’s wife was a “private entrepreneur” who had purchased the property using her own “income and savings”.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
