Nestor Shufrych was informed of a new suspicion of financing the Russian Guard in Crimea

Author:
Sofiia Telishevska
Date:

The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) employees together with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) documented new evidence of the anti-Ukrainian activities of MP Nestor Shufrych, who is already suspected of treason.

According to the investigation, the suspect established a financing scheme for Russian occupation groups in the temporarily annexed Crimea.

In particular, Shufrych paid money to the Russian Guard for paramilitary protection of his elite real estate on the territory of the peninsula. In just 3 months of 2016, the company under his control paid the occupiers more than half a million Russian rubles for these services.

The Russian Guardsmen were supposed to guard the unfinished prophylactic with a total area of more than 4.5 thousand square meters. m, located near the sea in the village of Simeiz. The plot of land with an area of more than 1.5 hectares, on which the complex is located, is included in the recreation area and borders the "Medvedchuk dacha". This real estate was purchased from enterprises whose beneficial owner was Oksana Marchenko. The relevant agreement was signed by the company, where Shufrychʼs personal lawyer is the executive director.

Subsequently, those involved organized the signing of a contract with the structures of the Russian Guard for the "protection" of the object in Crimea, according to which hundreds of thousands of Russian rubles were transferred to the accounts of the occupiers every month. In addition, the company controlled by Shufrych regularly financed the budget of the Russian Federation by paying taxes and fees.

During the searches in the offices of commercial entities affiliated with the MP and residences of the persons involved in Kyiv, documents, seals and other physical evidence of criminal activity were discovered.

On the basis of the documented facts, the SBI investigators informed Nestor Shufrych and his lawyer about the suspicion under Part 3 of Art. 110-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (financing of actions committed for the purpose of violent change or overthrow of the constitutional order or seizure of state power, change of territory or state border of Ukraine). The investigation is ongoing.

Shufrychʼs case

On September 15, Nestor Shufrych was suspected of treason. According to the investigation, he "closely cooperated" and carried out the tasks of the former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Volodymyr Sivkovich, an FSB agent who coordinated the Russian agency in Ukraine. One of Shufrychʼs main tasks, according to the investigation, was subversive activity in the information sphere — he constantly spread the Kremlinʼs narratives that the Ukrainian state is an "artificial entity", that Ukraine and Russia have "one history" and that Ukrainians and Russians are " one nation". Thus, SBU claims, Shufrych tried to develop pro-Russian sentiment in Ukrainian society.