Lutsenko's Birthday: Former Subordinates and Politicians Celebrated at Restaurant of NABU Case Suspect

Journalists found out who came to congratulate the former prosecutor general.

On 14 December, former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko turned 55. He celebrated his birthday at the Italian restaurant Vino e Cucina in central Kyiv. Journalists from the programme “Schemes” found out who attended the celebration. As it turned out, some of the guests are themselves featured in criminal cases and anti-corruption investigations.

Among the political figures who gathered at the event were, in particular:

• 5th President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko
• Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko
• businessman Ihor Surkis and his brother, sitting People's Deputy from the Opposition Platform — For Life Hryhoriy Surkis — both featured in an investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine into embezzlement in the state energy sector
• former People's Deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and political strategist of the 5th President Ihor Hryniov
• former head of the State Protection Directorate Valeriy Geletey — in 2017 it was the State Protection Directorate that guarded the wedding of Lutsenko's eldest son, when its officers attacked the Schemes film crew
• former MP and political strategist Viktor Ukolov
• former People's Deputy from the People's Front Andriy Teterev
• sitting MP from European Solidarity Volodymyr Ariev
• sitting non-factional parliamentarian Andriy Derkach, who in the past, among other things, studied at the Academy of the Federal Security Service of Russia and was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Party of Regions.

Journalists noticed among the guests Lutsenko's former subordinates from the Prosecutor General's Office, some of whom still work there.

Among those they managed to identify:

• until recently Kyiv prosecutor Roman Hovda — on 11 December Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka accepted his resignation
• former head of the General Inspection of the Prosecutor General's Office Volodymyr Uvarov
• former head of the department for supervision of compliance with laws in the enforcement of court decisions in criminal proceedings at the Prosecutor General's Office Viacheslav Svyrets
• former head of the department of information technology, documentation and material and technical support at the Prosecutor General's Office Kostiantyn Morhun
• former head of the department for maintaining state prosecution and representing the interests of a citizen or the state in courts at the Prosecutor General's Office Serhiy Tymchenko
• former head of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast prosecutor's office Valeriy Romanov — in November he received the post of head of the department for supervision of compliance with laws by fiscal service bodies in criminal proceedings of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast prosecutor's office

The Vino e Cucina restaurant itself belongs to Kyiv businessman Mykhailo Beilin — former adviser to the head of the Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin, and now a suspect in a NABU/SAPO criminal case. Beilin is suspected of involvement in a corruption scheme at Ukrzaliznytsia that caused damage of UAH 20 million.

For Lutsenko's birthday, the restaurant was completely closed to other guests, which is not usually done at this establishment.

Yuriy Lutsenko's press secretary Larysa Sarhan has already responded to the published information.

“He wasn't invited, but he came again,” Sarhan wrote on her Facebook page, referring to Schemes journalist Mykhailo Tkach, who took photos together with the programme's film crew.

“He filmed a lot of video of passersby and even guests of the wedding who were celebrating on the first floor of the same restaurant. So I'll point out right away that he is lying. And restaurants in Kyiv, perhaps, belong to someone — if not one person, then another. He didn't recognize many of them, including Dmytro Yarosh. Probably because people like that don't interest him a priori. Because here it's about ‘defending the homeland, not peeking into plates from under bushes,’” noted Lutsenko's representative.

According to her, there is not a single current prosecutor in the photos, and there is nothing sensational about the guests who came to Lutsenko's celebration.

“By the way, there is not a single current prosecutor in the photos. Imagine — people free of government posts gathered to congratulate a colleague. Horror! That can't happen, right? Especially not under compulsion,” Sarhan wrote.