The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) declared the suspicion in absentia to the Minister of Revenues and Duties of Ukraine in 2012–2014 Oleksandr Klymenko. In February 2014, he left for the Russian Federation.
This is reported by SBU.
Investigators claim that Klymenko founded a financial and industrial group in Moscow that receives profits from the mining industry in the temporarily occupied part of the Luhansk region.
In 2024, the former minister and the CEO of the controlled holding included the local mine "Bilorichenska", occupied since 2014, in its composition. This enterprise is one of the largest in Ukraine in terms of the extraction of high-value anthracite.
To take control of it, Klymenkoʼs accomplice concluded an agreement with the so-called Minister of Fuel, Energy and Coal Industry of the “LPR” to lease the mine with its subsequent redemption. The terms also included the transfer of two subsidiary enterprises to the ex-ministerʼs company.
After that, the defendants received a license from the Russian Federal Agency for Subsoil Use to develop the coal seams of the mine. To obtain the appropriate permission, Klymenko used personal connections in the Russian government and the Russian occupation administration in Luhansk.
Klymenko and his accomplice pay most of their profits in taxes to the Russian budget, which leads to the sponsorship of the war against Ukraine.
The SBU investigators informed Klymenko and his accomplice of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 28, Article 111-2 (aiding an aggressor state, i.e. committing intentional acts in a prior conspiracy by a group of persons with the aim of causing harm to Ukraine by implementing and supporting decisions of the occupation administration of the Russian Federation) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
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