We are analyzing the “Sense Bank” case. The MPs Zheleznyak and Hetmantsev turned the fight against corruption in the bank into a reality show, but in this show there is a lack of reality. The final material of the series

November 2026 marks a year since the parliamentary TIC began investigating the “Sense Bank” case. Dozens of witnesses visited it during the year. The commission began working after the first NABU recordings in the “Midas” case, it analyzed the “Mindich recordings”, and then the NABU “Forrest Gump” recordings.

Testimonies were given by MPs, ministers and their deputies, the head of NBU Andriy Pyshny, and members of his team, and even two former bank managers who later found themselves under investigation. The stories they discussed were enough for Babel for 3 large materials; and for the head of TIC Yaroslav Zheleznyak — for a series of issues of the “Iron MP” vlog, based on the hearings of his own commission.

While analyzing the “Sense Bank” case, we could not help but notice that the statements of the MPs who are members of TIC are poorly consistent with the facts of the case — or do not correspond at all.

Danylo Hetmantsev and Yaroslav Zheleznyak build a picture of events in the bank, which can be described as follows: high-ranking officials (including the head of NBU Andriy Pyshny) wanted to use the bank for their corrupt purposes, namely, to cover up illegal online casino operations. To do this, they first appointed their CEO to the bank, and then a "supervisor".

They also removed the bankʼs inconvenient supervisory board and installed a managed one. After that, money laundering began through the bank and bail was provided for the corrupt official, former minister Herman Halushchenko. The convincingness of such a picture is due to the fact that it is simple and partly based on the truth. However, it does not withstand detailed examination.

To show why it doesnʼt hold up, we will first have to describe in detail what happened in the bank after nationalization.

What happened at “Sense Bank” after nationalization: we establish a timeline of events and consider several versions

The story of “Sense Bank” cannot be told without mentioning the head of the Presidentʼs Office (OP) Andriy Yermak and his management strategy, which was to place loyal people in key positions across the country.

Until September 2024, one of his deputies was Rostyslav Shurma. In OP, he was responsible for the economic block, including the financial sector. This is what we mean when we call him a "curator".

Among his other powers, Rostyslav Shurma had leverage over state-owned banks. He was the presidentʼs representative on an important commission — the one that determines independent members of their supervisory boards.

The state nationalized the bank in several steps, in three days: from July 20 to 22, 2023.

It passed to a new owner — the Ministry of Finance. The bank immediately had two higher levels of management — a new Supervisory Board and a new Board of Directors. They consisted of people who had not worked at “Sense Bank” before. The Supervisory Board was headed by Turkish financier Sevki Açuner as an independent member.

Before the great war, he was the head of EBRD Ukraine and the supervisory boards of two large state-owned companies — “Ukrzaliznytsia” and “Ukrenergo” — so he understood both banking and Ukrainian realities. Sevki Açuner, like all other members of the board, came to office without a standard multi-level competition, because the first supervisory board was transitional.

In his new role, Sevki Açuner headed the bankʼs key committee, the Appointments Committee. It was this committee that further selected candidates for all key positions in the bank. The most important competition he conducted by the end of 2023 was the selection of a person for the vacant position of CEO of the bank.

The committee considered several dozen candidates and eventually settled on Oleksiy Stupak. Stupak had worked at the bank since 2019. Already during the Great War, but before nationalization, he was a member of the bankʼs board for half a year — so he understood the processes inside well.

Among the arguments for his appointment was the "softness" of the bankʼs transition from the former owners to the state. In addition, Oleksiy Stupak overlapped with two members of the existing bankʼs board, because he had worked with them before in other banks. The fact that Oleksiy Stupak was related to the secret management structure of the former owners was not known at that time.

Another person that Sevki Açuner brought to the bank was businessman Vasyl Vesely. Vesely became an advisor to the supervisory board. As Sevki Açuner explained to the commission, he was to be responsible for relations with the government — i.e., the owner of the bank.

At a meeting of the appointments committee, Açuner noted that an advisor in this role is expected to have a “high level of communication in the political context of the work of the Supervisory Board”.

Pages from minutes No. 8 of the meeting of the Appointments Committee of the Supervisory Board of "Sense Bank" (March 23, 2024).

«Babel'»

Sevki Açuner proposed hiring Vasyl Vesely as a staff member with a salary of UAH 230 000 per month, but another committee member insisted on concluding an "advisor" contract with him with a probationary period, and setting the salary at UAH 150 000 per month.

«Babel'»

What was the “political context” of the work of the supervisory board of Açuner, and what exactly was Vasyl Vesely supposed to help with? Perhaps the supervisory board was following the instructions of OP and preparing the bank for privatization, in which the new owner would have been determined in advance.

Perhaps, on the contrary, it resisted OP and tried to prepare the bank for transparent privatization. Perhaps, the bank had claims from businessmen with political influence, who were owed large sums by the previous owners. We can only discuss these versions hypothetically, since there is no direct evidence in favor of any of them.

However, we understood part of the political context well — from the legislation, the bankʼs public reporting and the NBUʼs comments. In the summer of 2024, the "transition period" after nationalization was looming. For Sevki Açuner, this meant that the supervisory board under his leadership would become incompetent.

To prevent this from happening, the government had to open a competition and hire at least one more member. For this, the Ministry of Finance had to get the green light from the Presidentʼs Office. Otherwise, Sevki Açuner would de facto lose his job.

According to one version, Vasyl Vesely was supposed to help him keep his job by using his own connections in OP.

In the end, Sevki Açuner’s hopes were not fulfilled — exactly a year after the nationalization, his supervisory board became incompetent.

On July 22, 2024, the bank’s top corporate governance structure essentially disappeared.

The fact that this could happen was clear in advance to all interested parties: the Office of the President, the Ministry of Finance, the National Bank, and the Supervisory Board itself. It was probably possible to ensure that the powers of the first supervisory board were extended, but this did not happen.

Instead, the bank’s owner (the government, represented by the Ministry of Finance) began to “reboot” the supervisory board from scratch. As a result, at least one major external audit of the bank, which was conducted at that time by “PwC” company, was paused — the auditor checked whether the bank was transparent in setting tariffs for the gambling business.

Why did this happen? We cannot answer this question with absolute certainty, but we are inclined to one version. It was during this period that Rostyslav Shurma was expelled from the Office of the President for corruption in the energy sector.

In early August, the first reports appeared that he had embezzled state funds, and in mid-August, Bihus.Info published a major investigation about him. In early September, Rostyslav Shurma left the Office of the President, and two months later, Iryna Mudra replaced him in the "banking" competition commission as the presidentʼs representative.

So in August 2024, the Ministry of Finance approved an HR company to search for candidates for the new supervisory board. The members of Şevki Acunerʼs board could potentially retain some of their powers and work in the bankʼs committees, but the Ministry of Finance blocked this with a separate order. Şevki Acuner himself wanted to be on the next supervisory board and submitted documents, but his candidacy was not considered by Iryna Mudraʼs commission.

The selection and approval of the supervisory board of a state-owned bank is carried out in 6 stages, which take a lot of time. In the case of Sense Bank, its supervisory board did not work for 14 months and became competent again only in early October 2025.

At the first meeting, the new supervisory board elected Mykola Hladyshenko as chairman.

During the period of the first Supervisory Board, a major purge of the gambling market occurred.

One of the key market participants was the company “Diamond Pay”. It processed payments for online casinos and was serviced by many banks, including “Sense Bank”. In general, the bank was almost a monopolist in the market for acquiring gaming services, so NBU became interested in its earnings in this market. This was necessary because after nationalization, the bank had serious problems with capital, and it had to replenish it precisely from the money it earned.

In the first half of 2024, Russian passports were found on the owners of “Diamond Pay”, and through joint efforts of NBU and the State Bank of Ukraine, it was taken off the market and its accounts were blocked.

“Diamond Pay” kept money in accounts in at least 5 different banks, large and small, and tried to withdraw about a billion hryvnias from them. To do this, it used a scheme with various courts and bailiffs (we described it in detail in the 2nd article of our series). With the help of a court decision, it withdrew money from three banks, including UAH 54 million from “Sense Bank” — it was forced to comply with the court decision.

All this time, NBU has been trying to understand how “Sense Bank” sets tariffs and commissions for payment systems serving online casinos. It turned out that the bank was constantly changing tariffs for the gambling business, and they were determined by one person at the middle management level.

After an internal audit of the bank, this person was fired. To play it safe, the Supervisory Board of Şevki Acuner hired an external auditor “PwC”, who checked the acquiring direction, but lost its authority in the middle of this process. So NBU took up tariff policy again.

In December 2024, it conducted an unscheduled inspection of the bank and made its recommendations. Over the next year, “Sense Bank” developed a special methodology for calculating the cost of such operations and unified tariffs. Now they are at the same level as in other banks.

The bankʼs adventures did not end there. In the spring of 2025, when the supervisory board was still incompetent, NBU uncovered traces of a secret structure in the bank that had managed the bank before the Great War.

We described this structure in the previous series of our analysis, so we will not dwell on it in detail now. Although, let us recall the main revelation — among the people who previously helped this structure, there was Oleksiy Stupak, the current head of the bank.

NBU began an internal audit, sent inquiries to law enforcement agencies, and waited. This was unpleasant news, but overall it could play into the hands of the state — it increased its chances in international arbitration.

The point was that all this time the owner of the bank (the government) was preparing to “fight back” two lawsuits in international arbitration. The lawsuit was filed by the structure of Mykhailo Fridman (i.e., the former owner of the bank). Fridman’s side insisted that before nationalization the bank was an exemplary institution, and that Ukraine illegally expropriated it in order to then use it in dirty deals (we described one of these two lawsuits in a separate article).

The fact that NBU exposed a secret structure in the bank that was exploiting the bank was a weighty argument in favor of Ukraine. So the bank’s affairs were not going perfectly, but not catastrophically either.

In the summer of 2026, under a new supervisory board, the bank was caught up in a major corruption scandal — "Mindichgate".

First, the bank surfaced on the "Mindich recordings". Then, a few months later — on the "Forrest Gump" recordings.

In the “Mindich redordings” (published by Ukrainska Pravda), two people were coordinating independent candidates for the rebooted Supervisory Board. The conversation on the recordings took place on May 12, 2025, a year before the publication (i.e., exactly in the days when Iryna Mudra’s commission was forming the final list of candidates, which was to be submitted to the Prime Minister for signature.

The interlocutors discussed that the supervisory board should have “5 or 6 of our members … and we have 2, according to our quota … the state provides them”. They then spoke of “ours” and “not ours” members of the board.

The media interpreted this dialogue as a corruption conspiracy, because NABU identified the interlocutors as Vasyl Vesely and Oleksandr Zukerman. Allegedly businessmen were putting “their” people on the supervisory board.

If we analyze the content of this dialogue, without knowing the media version, it can be interpreted as a working conversation of people who are directly related to the work of the bank — for example, assistants or advisors to the members of the selection committee.

What does “5 or 6 of our members … and we have 2, according to our quota … the state provides them” mean?

Let’s take a closer look at the composition of the new Supervisory Board. On the day of the conversation, two members of the Supervisory Board, both citizens of Ukraine, remained in it from the previous composition from the state quota.

After the new board was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, it consisted of 6 citizens of Ukraine and 3 foreigners.

In general, the conversation on the “Mindich recordings” is too fragmentary to confidently understand its content from beginning to end. But with our assumption, another part of the dialogue becomes clear.

The interlocutors discuss whether we have “Mistyuk or Shlapak” in the final list of candidates.

“He wants to extend [his] Shlapak,” says the first.

“And this one is for Mistyuk,” replies the second.

“There are some questions about Shlapak,” says the first a little later.

At the same time, the interlocutors constantly mention a person named Yuriy. This is consistent with the fact that during the discussion of candidates, a member of the selection committee Yuriy Drahanchuk proposed Stanislav Shlapak to the supervisory board, and the EBRD representative expressed reservations about him. In the end, Stanislav Shlapak did not make it to the final list.

The version that this was a normal work conversation may turn out to be false. Nevertheless, it explains several [following] circumstances that the other version does not:

• There is currently no public evidence that the bank provided loans on special (non-market) terms to companies associated with Tymur Mindych or Vasyl Vesely.
• During Vasyl Veselyʼs tenure as an advisor, “Sense Bank” had the smallest share of the gambling services acquiring market (this follows from the monthly market data we provided above). Under the rebooted Supervisory Board, the bank did not relax the rules for working with online casinos.
• The bank held a bail for Herman Halushchenko, but this was the trail of Iryna Mudra, who was rescuing Halushchenko on the instructions of her manager. At the same time, no cash passed through the bank, the bank managers did not interfere with the automation system, and in general, he was a secondary point of the bail scheme.
• Most importantly: after the “Mindich recordings”, Mykola Hladyshenko’s supervisory board immediately ordered an audit of its own work on all issues related to the “Mindich recordings” (we will describe this audit below). If we accept that the Supervisory Board was corrupted by Tymur Mindich, this decision looks strange.

The investigation has yet to establish whether people associated with Tymur Mindich influenced the work of the bank. Based on the currently available information and solely on the content of this dialogue, this cannot be stated unequivocally.

Babel has reached out to Vasyl Vesely and Oleksandr Zukerman for comment. Both claim that they did not see each other that day and never discussed the “Sense Bank” Supervisory Board.

Since Oleksandr Zukerman was already a suspect in the “Midas case”, a scandal erupted.

On May 5, 4 days after the publication of the “reordings”, the parliamentary TIC began hearing the “Sense Bank” case. The “Sense Bank” executives — the chairman of the Supervisory Board Mykola Hladyshenko and CEO Oleksiy Stupak — also came to answer questions. Many details of this case remained unknown at the time.

For example, it had not yet been publicly reported that Oleksiy Stupak’s name appeared in the bank’s secret protocols. Therefore, TIC mainly questioned the bank’s executives about their connections with the “Midas case” defendants. For example, whether “Sense Bank” lends to companies associated with Tymur Mindich.

Immediately after the TIC hearings, Mykola Hladyshenko’s new Supervisory Board decided that it should verify the information related to its work. On May 12, it opened a competition for an independent external auditor — he was to be selected from among the “Big Four” companies or specialized companies from a separate list.

The auditor was to check whether the new supervisory board had created any special conditions in the bank for Tymur Mindich or other characters of the “recordings”.

Official response of "Sense Bank" to Babelʼs request (10/19/2026).

«Babel'»

«Babel'»

Potential auditors submitted price proposals, but the Supervisory Board did not have time to determine the winner. The contracts of 2 members (the same ones who remained on it from the previous composition as representatives of the state) expired, and it lost its eligibility.

Immediately after this, another scandal broke out — NABU published the “Forrest Gump” recordings.

For the bankʼs reputation, this was an event that can be described with a word from gaming slang — fatality. It turned out that when selecting a new Supervisory Board, Iryna Mudra recommended that the HR company include Mykola Hladyschenko in the long list.

In addition, according to NABU, Iryna Mudra helped her partner launder cash that went to bail Herman Halushchenko, a suspect in the “Midas case”.

At the same time, her partnerʼs assistant asked Mykola Hladyschenko how to pass the bail through the bank. This looked suspicious, and when NABU exposed Iryna Mudra, it also raised suspicions among the bankʼs managers.

Later, “Sense Bank” turned out to be only a small part of the story with Herman Halushchenko. The bank was indeed one of the links in the scheme of “leaking” the collateral for Halushchenko, but a secondary one. No cash passed through it.

The version that Mykola Hladyshenko and Oleksiy Stupak interfered with the bank’s automation system in order to carry out the collateral did not come true either. Nevertheless, the conversations of Iryna Mudra and her partner, fixed on recordings, severely damaged the state’s reputation.

The main problem is that they strengthened the position of the former owners in international arbitration against Ukraine.

The version of the MPs Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Danylo Hetmantsev: “Sense Bank” generated "flows" in the gambling business, and the NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny is responsible for this

The parliamentary TIC hearings added another dimension to the “Sense Bank” case — a political struggle. In fact, this was precisely the goal formulated by the head of TIC Yaroslav Zheleznyak — his job was to “bring to political responsibility”. Since Rostyslav Shurma had fled abroad and Iryna Mudra was in custody, there were few objects left to bring to political responsibility — NBU or the Ministry of Finance.

The loudest sensation that was heard at the TIC hearings was the testimony of Sevki Açuner. He said that Vasyl Vesely was recommended to him for the post of advisor by the NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny, and then Vasyl Vesely was introduced to him personally at a meeting in the NBU building.

In addition, Sevki Açuner said that he did not want to appoint Oleksiy Stupak as the chairman of the bankʼs board (“he was not among those whom I preferred”), because he “was a legacy from the previous owners” and “did not have the qualities of a leader”.

We will analyze Sevki Açunerʼs statement a little later, but first we will reveal the versions of Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Danylo Hetmantsev.

At the testimony of Sevki Açuner, the head of TIC Yaroslav Zheleznyak built a version of events that looks like this.

“The cash generator [in “Sense Bank”] was the understated commissions for acquiring gambling businesses. [...] The [first] supervisory board is appointed. They put pressure [on Açuner] and [for the position of CEO] Stupak is selected, and it was being done by Shurma [or] Yermak. The Supervisory Board does not like this. They are immediately put in place, the quorum is broken, and they are blocked. Then the head of NBU [Andriy Pyshny] calls Açuner for a conversation and [presents] Vesely. Vesely did not have the professional [qualities]. But a person is appointed, the Supervisory Board (except for Açuner) votes for it, and the situation improves. Then [the Supervisory Board] begins to have questions about the commission [for gambling businesses] and some payments [to online casinos]. So the Supervisory Board is terminated, everyone who asked questions is ʼknocked downʼ and not taken to the competition. They appoint a new Supervisory Board based on the recommendations of Iryna Mudra. They appoint Mykola Hladyshenko as the chairman, who is connected Vasyl Vesely… [Then] money is laundered through the bank, the bank appears on the ʼMindich recordingsʼ.”

Danylo Hetmantsev also voiced his version of the events at the bank at one of the TIC hearings. He accuses the NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny of “turning a blind eye to […] illegal payments [from the gambling business]” and of covering up a criminal group that “drived gamblers to ʼSense Bankʼ and then dictated terms to them”.

“The National Bank deliberately agreed to the Supervisory Board [in this way], and after that, the violations were carried out with the tacit consent of [NBU],” he says.

It will be easier to analyze the version of “tacit consent”, so we will start with it.

Unfortunately, from Danylo Hetmantsev’s formulations, it is not clear who specifically he sees as responsible, except for the head of the National Bank. In any case, the picture he paints does not correspond well with the facts.

“Sense Bank” had (and still has) a large share of the gambling acquiring market. It cannot suddenly abandon these operations because the previous owners left the bank with capital problems. The bank has to replenish it from profits, and its income from gambling acquiring is $30-50 million per year, such a volume of operations is difficult to replace.

Since 2022, the gambling business has generally gone through two major purges. We described in detail how law enforcement officers conducted them together with the National Bank and parliament in a large article.

NBU paid special attention to “Sense Bank”. Moreover, it was the first to begin investigating how the bank sets rates for the gambling business. This is evidenced by the request that the NBUʼs banking supervision department sent to the bank in September 2023.

It was after this that “Sense Bank” began audits: first — internal, and then — external. It turned out that the bankʼs rates were indeed understated.

The external audit of the acquiring was conducted by “PwC”. In the middle of the process, the supervisory board of Açuner lost its authority. So NBU took up the tariff policy again.

In December 2024, it conducted an unscheduled inspection of the bank and gave its recommendations to the already rebooted Supervisory Board.

In 2025, “Sense Bank” developed a methodology for calculating the cost price and unified tariffs. Now they are at the same level as other banks.

Now letʼs analyze Yaroslav Zheleznyakʼs version.

It is easy to see that its key element does not correspond to the timeline of events — the supervisory board was not deprived of a quorum at the beginning of its work.

The most interesting thing is that it is based on the testimony of Sevki Açuner, which was not received critically. His testimony is easy to verify, and this verification shows that Sevki Açunerʼs words do not correspond to the facts in several places at once.

Firstly, Sevki Açuner said that he did not want to appoint Oleksiy Stupak as the chairman of the bank’s board because he “was a legacy from the previous owners” and “did not have leadership qualities”.

This contradicts two protocols: the protocol of the nomination committee, which was headed by Sevki Açuner, and the protocol of its supervisory board. It follows from them that all members of the nomination committee (including Sevki Açuner) supported Oleksiy Stupak’s candidacy.

Sevki Açuner personally emphasized that Oleksiy Stupak had the necessary leadership qualities (determined by the Hogan assessment methodology). At the supervisory board meeting, Sevki Açuner said that “Oleksiy Stupak is the most suitable candidate in terms of his skills, competence, and understanding of the challenges”.

At all stages of the selection, Sevki Açuner voted for Oleksiy Stupak. He also voted for Vasyl Vesely.

Secondly, Sevki Açuner said that Vasyl Vesely was recommended to him as an advisor by Andriy Pyshny, and then Vesely was introduced to him personally at a meeting in the NBU building, in the government quarter.

Logic suggests that such a meeting should have taken place between the nationalization of the bank (07/22/2023) and the day Vasyl Vesely was appointed as an advisor (03/26/2024). An extract from the NBU access control system shows that Vasyl Vesely did not visit the building during this period, which means that such a meeting could not have taken place there.

It is known from the TIC hearings that the head of the commission Yaroslav Zheleznyak asked NBU for the same information about Vasyl Veselyʼs visits. He received the same answer, so he should have understood that Sevki Açunerʼs words did not match the documents.

At that moment, the head of the TIC could have concluded that Sevki Açuner was giving knowingly false testimony and referred the case to law enforcement.

However, the head of the commission chose a different path. He stated that he was preparing a statement about a crime to NABU, referring to Andriy Pyshnyʼs testimony, because they contradicted Sevki Açunerʼs testimony.

Why did MPs Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Danylo Hetmantsev focus on the responsibility of the NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny?

We cannot say anything with absolute certainty, but we are inclined to one version. Back in the summer, backstage conversations leaked to the media that the president was dissatisfied with Andriy Pyshny.

In addition, the members of TIC most likely knew that NABU was investigating a case in which Andriy Pyshnyʼs name appears, and it was connected to the “Midas case”. They probably decided to use TIC to earn political points on the most high-profile investigation of the war years.

Was there any other logical course of action for the parliamentary TIC, besides the fact that it was obliged to verify the words of Sevki Açuner?

The commission should analyze issues of public interest, find systemic flaws in the legislation and propose ways to change it for the better. “Minditchgate” in general and its separate episode called “Forrest Gump” are certainly of public interest, and it revealed several systemic flaws, including in the work of the TIC itself.

In the “Forrest Gump” recordings, Iryna Mudra talks about how “Sense Bank” was blackmailed by two people — they offered the bank managers a “covering” and in return promised that “they would not wrack the bank”.

In the wiretap, Iryna Mudra names the names of two people who came to the bank managers with offers of a “covering”.

“At first, Davyd came, and then — ***,” she says.

TThe second person’s name is cut out, but the video reads: “the head of the VRU committee”. We can assume that this refers to the head of the “Servant of the People” faction Davyd Arakhamia and the head of the finance committee Danylo Hetmantsev.

If the investigative commission considered everything that is said on the tapes as the truth (and this is exactly how the commission perceived the content of all other episodes of the recordings, primarily the “Mindich recordings”), then it should have addressed the socially important issue of whether a member of the investigative commission really blackmailed the managers of “Sense Bank”.

At the same time, the TIC member Danylo Hetmantsev is the chairman of the parliamentary finance committee, and the TIC chairman Yaroslav Zheleznyak is his first deputy in this committee.

In addition, TIC and the finance committee include the MP Oleksandr Sova. He is also a member of the commission that selected members of the “Sense Bank” supervisory board a year and a half ago.

So, in the “Sense Bank” case, members of the parliamentary finance committee act simultaneously in three roles: a participant in the state process (selection of the National Audit Office), a participant in parliamentary control over this process, and a potential violator of this process.

This is an obvious and multi-layered conflict of interest. The main anti-corruption law and the law on investigative commissions did not provide for such a conflict of interest. TIC may draw attention to this systemic flaw in the legislation.

Meanwhile, “Sense Bank” is preparing for privatization.

Its current owner, the Ministry of Finance, has already chosen a financial advisor — a private Franco-British company owned by the Rothschild family will prepare the bank for privatization.

One of the interesting questions for the future is whether anyone connected to the “Sense Bank” case, which we described in our series of materials, will appear among the contenders for the bank.

Babel will follow the development of events.