Kravchenko continued publishing materials against Kryvonos after his suspension

Suspended from the post of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko continued a public campaign against NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and released new video with recordings and materials of criminal proceedings regarding events of 2014 in Kyiv region. Kravchenko claims that Kryvonos was involved in a scheme to extort money for a land plot and falsify its valuation. However, these claims remain Kravchenko's version, and the Prosecutor General's Office itself has already stated that Kryvonos was not served a suspicion in the manner prescribed by the CPC of Ukraine.

In the new video, Kravchenko returned to the criminal proceedings of 2014, when Kryvonos headed the registration service of the Obukhiv city district justice department of Kyiv region.

According to the version of the investigation outlined by Kravchenko, the head of Starobezradychi village council Petro Horbachenko, together with Kryvonos and other persons, allegedly extorted an unlawful benefit from Vladyslav Ruzmatov for obtaining a land plot of 0.25 hectares in the village of Tarasivka, Obukhiv district.

At the initial stage, as stated in the materials, the village head named the amount of $120 thousand. Later, the investigation's version figures an unlawful benefit of $72 thousand.

Ruzmatov, according to the video materials, in April 2014 turned to law enforcement agencies and subsequently acted under their control.

The scheme, as claimed by Kravchenko, provided that the land would be free of charge registered by another person - Vitalii Overchenko. After registration of ownership, he was to sell the plot to Ruzmatov. Thus, the transfer of money was to look like an ordinary sale-purchase transaction.

In the video, Kryvonos is assigned the role of one of the organizers of this mechanism. Kravchenko claims that it was the registration service headed by Kryvonos that registered Overchenko's ownership of the land, after which he issued a power of attorney for its subsequent sale.

A separate block of the released materials concerns the valuation of the plot. According to Kravchenko, the scheme participants sought to artificially lower its documented value to minimize taxes and carry out settlement in cash.

The video contains a recording of a phone conversation, which the authors of the material attribute to Kryvonos. The interlocutor speaks about the need to get an assessment at the level of about 149 thousand UAH. Further, according to the materials of the proceedings, the appraiser determined the cost of the plot at 149,896 UAH instead of 345 thousand UAH.

The authenticity of the released audio recordings and the belonging of voices to specific persons has not been independently established. Kravchenko himself presents them as materials of the criminal proceedings.

The planned sale of land in October 2014 was never completed. The video claims that on October 31, during the execution of the agreement at a notary, one of the participants received a message, after which the transaction was first postponed, and then finally stopped.

Kravchenko also released a more sensitive version of the reasons for the failure of the operation. According to him, the investigation established that on the same day Kryvonos met with Deputy Prosecutor of Obukhiv district Oleksii Pavlushko, after which he stopped using his phone and began to avoid contacts with other persons involved. The video itself does not provide direct evidence that this particular meeting led to the leak of information about the operation.

Based on these materials, Kravchenko declares the possible involvement of Kryvonos in requesting an unlawful benefit in especially large amount and organizing the drawing up of a knowingly false document on land valuation.

This story is not new. The issue of the 2014 criminal proceedings was raised during previous competitions with the participation of Kryvonos, and later during the selection of the NABU director.

Kryvonos himself previously denied involvement in the corruption scheme. He claimed that no one in this case was served a suspicion, he himself was questioned as a witness, and the version set out by law enforcers was not confirmed.

Kravchenko in the new video, on the contrary, emphasizes that the materials regarding this episode were known to the competition commission, which later recommended Kryvonos among the candidates for the position of NABU director.

The publication took place after the suspension of Kravchenko himself from the post of Prosecutor General. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suspended him by decree on September 14, and the issue of final dismissal is to be decided by the Verkhovna Rada.

At the same time, the legal status of the "suspicion" of Kryvonos declared by Kravchenko actually changed the same evening. The Prosecutor General's Office stated that in the relevant criminal proceedings no person, including the head of the anti-corruption body, was served a suspicion in the manner prescribed by the CPC. The agency also stated the absence of legal grounds for this and the cancellation of corresponding marks in the URPI.

Kryvonos himself the day before stated that he had not received any paper notification of suspicion, and called the materials released by Kravchenko a "Telegram suspicion" and "nonsense." There was no separate public reaction of the NABU director specifically to the new video about the land case of 2014 at the time of publication.

Earlier, Kravchenko released the first part of the materials against the NABU director. In it, he claimed that Kryvonos allegedly registered paternity of someone else's child to obtain amnesty in an old criminal case, and a few years later achieved the removal of information about himself as father. Kryvonos denies these claims.

Based on materials: Ruslan Kravchenko / YouTube, Prosecutor General's Office, Radio Svoboda