In 2014-2019, we managed to create a team that professionally resisted Russia’s gas blackmail, was able to take the aces away from the Kremlin and win arbitration court with Gazprom in Stockholm, forever getting rid of energy dependence on the aggressor.
We managed to carry out important reforms of the corporate sector, the banking system, and the transport industry. For the first time in history, thanks to high-quality management and the absence of kickbacks and bribes, Naftogaz brought multibillion-dollar profits to the state budget. And in 2020, it became unprofitable again.
The oligarchs, who lost excess profits on their traditional schemes of using state monopolies and the banking sector, did not forgive this and threw millions, involved pocket TV channels to the reprisal with the reform team, discrediting the most professional Chairman of the National Bank, successful ministers of transport and infrastructure, heads of state-owned enterprises.
Our team, which included Kobolev, the head of Naftogaz, won the arbitration court with Gazprom. Today’s case against Kobolev is a return to the days of selective and politically motivated justice. Persecution of Kobolev benefits Russia and looks like revenge for its defeat.
The court, won by Naftogaz against Gazprom, broke the binding agreement, brought billions of dollars to the Ukrainian budget, not losses.
“European Solidarity” regrets that anti-corruption bodies, which are called to fight abuses, and not to punish those who stood up to abuses in the energy sector are involved in this. I would not like the result of these actions to be the formation of distrust in anti-corruption bodies.
Moreover, the results of the competition for the head of NABU do not considered by experts as transparent, and the newly elected head himself too close to Bankova street.
Professionals should be involved in government. And when reforms are punished, cases won in court with the Russian Federation are threatened with prison – this is hardly a motivation for hundreds of successful managers to go work from the private sector to the public sector.
Our team expresses support for Andrii Kobolev and considers this case to be politically motivated.