Mykola Vladislavovich Zlochevsky ( uk, Микола Владиславович Злочевський; born 14 June 1966) is a
Ukrainian oil and natural gas businessman, politician, and an
oligarch. Zlochevsky was
Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources from July 2010 until April 2012 and was the deputy secretary for Economic and Social Security on the
National Security and Defense Council from April 2012 until February 2014 when
Euromaidan occurred.
Biography
Business
In 2002, he co-founded the largest independent oil and natural gas company
Burisma Holdings
Burisma Holdings Limited ( uk, Бурісма Холдингс) is a holding company for a group of energy exploration and production companies. It is registered in Limassol, Cyprus, but based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Burisma Holdings has operated in t ...
with Ukrainian businessman . Through his sole ownership of
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
-registered Burisma Holdings, he owns the Ukrainian gas and oil producers Aldea, Pari, Esko-Pivnich, and the First Ukrainian Petroleum Company and the investment group Brociti Investments.
Governmental posts
Zlochevsky served as Ecology and Natural Resources Minister during most of the
first cabinet of
Mykola Azarov,
[ and during both the later part of Azarov's first government and all of Azarov's second government, he served as deputy secretary on National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of the ]President of Ukraine
The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych ( uk, Віктор Федорович Янукович, ; ; born 9 July 1950) is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of D ...
.[
]
Investigations into Burisma and Zlochevsky
In 2012, Viktor Pshonka
Viktor Pavlovych Pshonka ( uk, Віктор Павлович Пшонка, Russian: Виктор Павлович Пшонка, born 6 February 1954, Serhiyivtsi, Sloviansk Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) is a former Prosecutor Gene ...
, the Ukrainian prosecutor general, began investigating Burisma Holdings owner, Zlochevsky, over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption during 2010–2012.
In April 2014 Zlochevsky named Hunter Biden
Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American attorney who is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia Hunter Biden. He is also a hedge fund, venture capital, and private-equity fund investor who for ...
, son of then U. S. Vice President Joe Biden, to Burisma’s board as a director of Burisma, where he was said to have earned over $80,000 monthly. Joe Biden had been made ''the point man on Ukraine'' after February 2014, when the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted and fled. Then U. S. President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
's administration was prepared to work with the new government, a position shared with European governments and institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But they were all concerned about Ukraine's corruption, which had plagued the country ever since it gained independence in the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Joe Biden became a frequent visitor to Ukraine. By his own count, Biden said he went there about a dozen times from early 2014 through early 2016.
In April 2014, the Serious Fraud Office of the United Kingdom froze approximately $23 million belonging to companies controlled by Zlochevsky. At the end of 2014, Zlochevsky fled Ukraine amid allegations of unlawful self enrichment and legalization of funds (Article 368–2, Criminal Code of Ukraine) during his tenure in public office.[Liliya Hryshko. ]
Lifehack from Zlochevsky, how to return to Ukraine (Лайфхак від Злочевського – як повернутись в Україну)
'. Deutsche Welle. 7 February 2017. In January 2015, Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema announced that Zlochevsky had been put on the wanted list for alleged financial corruption. At the end of January 2015, the Central Criminal Court in London released the $23 million that were blocked on accounts of Zlochevsky due to inadequate evidence.[ In June 2018, the Serious Fraud Office stated that the case was closed.
In early November 2014 ]Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
reported that $24 million of funds from his companies were wired from Cyprus to the Latvia branch of PrivatBank, the bank co-owned by the oligarch in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ihor Kolomoyskyi
Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi ( uk, Ігор Валерійович Коломойський, translit=Ihor Valereriyovych Kolomoyskyi; he, איגור קולומויסקי; born 13 February 1963) is a Ukrainian-born billionaire, business magnat ...
, and nationalized at the end of 2016.
Zlochevsky returned to Ukraine in February 2018 after investigations into his Burisma Holdings had been completed in December 2017 with no charges filed against him.
On 18 April 2018, an alleged recording of part of a conversation between President of Ukraine
The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...
Petro Poroshenko
Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko se ...
and fugitive Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko was released by Onyshchenko which implicated Zlochevsky in graft.[
On 15 June 2018, after the Solomyansky District Court in Kyiv had annulled the ruling of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) to close a criminal proceeding against him in 2017, Zlochevsky was accused of having illegally issued, while he was Ecology Minister in 2010–2012, oil and gas licenses to the companies that belonged to him.
According to Ukrainian authorities Zlochevsky is suspected of "theft of government funds on an especially large scale". Authorities said the criminal investigation on suspicion of embezzlement is currently on hold because Zlochevsky's whereabouts cannot presently be determined. As of 2019, Zlochevsky is reported to live in ]Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. According to an investigation by Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
he bought Cypriot citizenship
Cypriot nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Cyprus. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Republic of Cyprus Citizenship Law, 1967, which came into force on 28 July 1967. Regulations app ...
somewhere between 2017 and 2019.
Notes
References
External links
ЗЛОЧЕВСЬКИЙ Микола Владиславович
(Mykola Vladislavovich Zlochevsky) biography in Ukrainian from PEP.ua.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zlochevsky, Mykola
1966 births
Living people
Politicians from Kyiv
Odesa Law Academy alumni
Businesspeople from Kyiv
Fourth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Fifth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Sixth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Ecology and natural resources ministers of Ukraine
Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) politicians
Party of Regions politicians
21st-century Ukrainian businesspeople
21st-century Ukrainian politicians