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52 I Eastern Europe bne October 2018
airport highlight the agency is making some, if not conclusive, progress in its anti-corruption battle, an unsolved act of violence at the presidential terminal of Kyiv’s Boryspol airport shows just how far there is left to travel in the war on graft.
In February 2017, an unknown assailant attacked the deputy CEO of the presi- dential “Hall of Official Delegations,” (or ZOD in Ukrainian) the presidential VIP terminal that handles all official visitors to Ukraine. The attacker threw acid in the eyes of mother-of-two Natalia Zhulinska directly outside the airport, blinding her.
The attack has been hushed up, but court documents allow its reconstruction.
The presidential administration had fired Zhulinska in 2014 to install a new management team at the airport to pursue restructuring. Zhulinska had fought back through the courts, using Ukraine’s strong protection for incumbent employees. She also organised a trade union cell at the state company to mobilise against a root and branch replacement of the work force.
As a result, a court decision reinstated Zhulinska in her job, and the presidential administration was forced to scrap plans for restructuring.
The main force behind the presidential administration’s new team at the “Hall” was controversial aviation business- man Roman Chelnokov. According to
an OCCRP investigation, Chelnokov not only worked for Ukraine’s president,
but also for allegedly corrupt President Teodor Obiang of Equatorial Guinea. There Chelnokov is a business associate of Vladimir Evdokimov, who served time in Ukraine for smuggling nuclear-capable missiles to Iran and China, and Vladimir Kokorev, who is on trial in Spain for money laundering for the Obiang family.
But Ukraine’s presidential administra- tion denies that the attack on Zhulinska has anything to do with her professional conflict. “Zhulinska was involved in a love triangle and the attack was revenge for cheating,” press secretary for the property department of the presiden- tial administration Yaryna Yakovyshyn told bne IntelliNews.
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The local Boryspil police department investigating the attack have also inves- tigated the personal motive theory, but have failed to establish the identity of the attacker, according to documents seen by bne IntelliNews.
“There was nothing personal about it [the attack],” says Veniamin Tymoshen- ko, head of Ukraine’s independent trade union of aviation workers, who says that prior to the acid attack there had been
a number of smaller provocations against Zhulinska, as well as attempts
at defamation.
A source close to Zhulinska called the press secretary’s allegations “ridiculous”. Zhulinska herself is undergoing opera- tions and is unavailable and unwilling
to talk to reporters when contacted for comment. Her treatment is being funded by the presidential terminal itself.
Zhulinska’s resistance to Chelnokov and backing from the workforce Chelnokov ultimately resulted in his being side- lined. “I have had no role in ZOD since April 2015 since Zhulinska organised
a protest meeting as [President Petro] Poroshenko was flying out, and he gave an order to calm things down.” Chelno- kov says he has nothing to do with the attack on Zhulinska and has not even been questioned by police about it. “I think they had some internal problems [leading to the attack]” he says.
A metre of the Ukrainian border
The Hall for Official Delegations is the official presidential airport terminal
for all diplomatic delegations visiting Ukraine – thus Ukraine’s aviation gate- way for the world’s heads of states. US vice president Joe Biden was received at the VIP terminal during his last visit to Ukraine in January 2017, for example.
The Hall is also used more broadly by politicians to cover up for secret mis- sions such as those of Paul Manafort, who shuttled on private jets between Ukraine and European capital on behalf of Yanukovych, as reported by bne IntelliNews, or by President Porosh- enko’s own private VIP jet business that was used by cronies of ousted president Yanukovych to flee to Russia after the
crowd turned nasty at the end of the Euromaidan revolution in 2014.
But it also has an important adminis- trative and commercial role. The Hall has its own customs post and passport control, giving it influence over
“1 metre of the Ukrainian border”, says Tymoshenko.
The Hall also has on its books an entire swish new VIP terminal that is awaiting completion – and for which in 2018 the government has awarded $15mn to finish it off. The Hall will then become the main commercial VIP terminal at Ukraine’s main airport starting 2019 – a potential money earner.
Following Chelnokov’s exit and Zhu- linska’s return, Zhulinska had set her sights on the post of CEO of the Hall. Under new reform legislation introduced in 2015, the CEO would no longer be
a presidential appointee, but would be decided by a competitive proce- dure administered by an independent appointments board.
Zhulinska’s blinding in February 2017 effectively ensured that the president’s candidate got the nod in June 2017: a youngster connected to a controversial Kyiv construction baron. There is nothing to suggest that either of these is in any way connected to the attack on her. But neither is there confidence in the local Boryspil police department’s ability to identify the culprits.
Former US vice president Joe Biden in his moving memoirs “Promise Me Dad” recalls flying into land at Boryspil in December 2015, when he gave what
he describes as a historic speech to the Rada. On the approach to Boryspil, Biden mulled how to best rouse Ukraine’s elite to the need to create a “glorious new beginning for their country,” recognising that “time was running out on the Ukrai- nian government to get it right.”
Nearly three years after Biden’s speech,
a start has been made on Ukraine’s “glori- ous new beginning” but the battle over Kyiv’s airports and the Zhulinska case shows that Ukraine’s government still
has not got it.