European Solidarity demands the government immediately dismiss Filip Pronin – statement from the faction

What was revealed at the High Anti-Corruption Court is no longer just another episode of “Minditchgate.” It’s a question of who provides financial support for corrupt officials in Ukraine, and how.

According to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Timur Mindich handed over cash that was to be laundered and used to post 150 million hryvnias in bail for former minister Herman Galushchenko, a defendant in the Midas case. The cash is converted into legal currency, passes through the financial system, and ultimately ends up with the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) as collateral.

Now we know much more about how exactly this happened. Consider this: one of the companies used as collateral had three employees and a net profit of 34,400 hryvnias last year. On June 25, 54 million hryvnias were deposited into its account—and on the same day, the entire 54 million were transferred to a special account at the High Anti-Corruption Court. The money was in the account for only a few hours.

And this isn’t the only case. Another company—with a registered capital of 5,000 hryvnias, one employee, and no reported income—has been reported. Another—with no available financial data—receives 5 million hryvnias, supposedly for goods, and then transfers it as collateral the same day. Another 72 million hryvnias in cash, according to published documents, were transferred through 137 payment transactions from 68 companies and sole proprietors.

This isn’t a complex financial scheme that would take months to unravel. 34,000 hryvnias in profit over the course of a year and 54 million hryvnias in transit in a single day. It’s obvious to the naked eye.

And here a very simple question arises: where has the State Financial Monitoring been all this time?

The same State Financial Monitoring Service, whose management reports on tens of thousands of audited bank accounts, the exposure of conversion centers, and hundreds of billions of hryvnias in suspicious transactions, is searching the late Portnov’s Telegram channel for “evidence” of “Poroshenko’s involvement in the Kharkiv Agreements.”

The resulting financial lens is astonishing: we see Portnov’s absurdity, we see the billions, but we don’t see the 150 million rubles that, according to the SAP, come from a defendant in one of the country’s largest corruption cases and are being used as collateral for another defendant in the same case? Don’t we want to see them?

Because new circumstances make this issue even more pressing. According to investigators, the bank’s payment control system was temporarily put into maintenance mode, and participants were informed of the exact time. During this agreed-upon “window,” the payment was processed automatically. In other words, the system didn’t crash. Investigators believe it was disabled for the right time to benefit corrupt officials.

There were at least three layers of protection: the bank’s own financial monitoring, the National Bank’s oversight, and the State Financial Monitoring Service. None of them worked.

Therefore, today, questions should be directed not only at bankers, converters, and intermediaries. They should also be addressed to the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service, Philipp Pronin.

We demand disclosure of the transactions conducted to launder the funds alleged by the SAP; which banks and companies they passed through; whether they received reports of suspicious financial transactions; what the State Financial Monitoring Service did after receiving such information, or why it did not receive it; and whether there was deliberate inaction on the part of officials that allowed these funds to flow through the financial system.

We demand a separate answer: what did Gosfinmonitoring know about the existence of the technological “windows” through which these payments were made? When did it learn of this? What actions did it take? And if it didn’t know, why didn’t the state financial intelligence service see what, according to investigators, had essentially become a ready-made “route” for transferring funds?

Because if financial intelligence fails to notice such operations, it’s a matter of professional incompetence. If it notices and does nothing, that’s a completely different matter, one that law enforcement agencies should answer.

A particular question is why Philipp Pronin still heads the State Financial Monitoring Service. His work has raised numerous public questions, both in parliament and within anti-corruption agencies. The country is increasingly hearing new stories about millions of corrupt individuals, laundromats, conversion centers, and the surprising financial routes of those in the inner circle of power.

Perhaps, after the SAP’s statements, it becomes clearer why the authorities so desperately need this particular head of the State Financial Monitoring Service?

Financial intelligence exists to prevent criminal money from being easily converted into “clean” money. And if corrupt officials’ money can travel from a suitcase full of cash through dozens of companies and hundreds of payments into the banking system, and from there to the VAKS cash register to fire those who shared it, then this is no longer a “hole” in financial monitoring.

Especially when the recordings released as part of the case contain the eloquent phrase: “the highway already exists, and we are not closing it.”

It is either a professional failure of the system, or a system that works exactly as it was supposed to.

European Solidarity demands that the government and Prime Minister Koretsky immediately suspend Filipp Pronin pending an investigation into all the circumstances surrounding the transfer of funds related to the bail of those involved in the Midas case. Sviridenko’s government included many people involved in the Midas case. They were ousted during the government’s reshuffle, but Pronin, as a highly trusted figure, was retained, which casts a shadow on the new government.

We also demand that it be established who opened the technological “windows,” who knew about them, and who ensured the unimpeded passage of this money through all levels of financial control. Because the 150 million rubles weren’t teleported to the High Anti-Corruption Court. Banks, companies, financial monitoring, the National Bank, and state financial intelligence stood in their way.

In the Midas case, it’s time to investigate both those who stole and those who helped the stolen goods become “clean.” If there was a “route” for corrupt money, society must know who provided the green light.

And this is obviously not only about Mudra and Nikitas.