The government of Ukraine decided on Tuesday to revoke the powers of the supervisory board of the state atomic energy company, Energoatom, as part of an investigation into money laundering from one of its offices in the capital, Kiev, which was searched earlier this week by authorities.
“Today the first decisions were made to relaunch Energoatom. The government has early suspended the functions of the company’s supervisory board,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko announced in a statement released via Telegram.
The leader explained that this body “has all the powers, from appointing management to controlling the company’s activities.” Since 2023, the Ukrainian executive has begun a “reform” of the Supervisory Board, selecting its members “through competition.” In this sense, he emphasized that Kiev “did not interfere in its activities,” and for this reason he urged the body to “take responsibility for the company’s situation.”
Sviridenko also noted that the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture will present a new composition of the Supervisory Board to the government, which will have one week to approve the appointments. He pointed out that the goal is to “quickly restart the administration and conduct a full audit of the company and provide all necessary assistance to law enforcement authorities in investigating possible cases of corruption.”
Subsequently, the Prime Minister announced that “the State Audit Service has been commissioned to conduct an urgent review of Energoatom, including acquisitions,” and she expects to submit its findings “as soon as possible” to law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU, its acronym in Ukrainian) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) on Monday announced a large-scale operation to investigate a corruption conspiracy in the energy sector, amid restrictions on electricity supplies following Russian attacks in recent days.
According to the two entities, a “criminal organization” laundered money from an office in Kiev, a property owned by former Ukrainian parliamentarian and businessman Andriy Derkach, who is currently a member of the Russian Senate. They believe that “about $100 million (87 million euros) passed through this money laundering scheme.”
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