Viktor SHOKIN: “Only the law makes us fair, humane and prudent…”
Viktor Mykolayovych Shokin, without exaggeration, is a legendary person. And not only among the prosecutorial community, but also in life in general. This is confirmed not only by the facts of his biography. Moreover, fate has repeatedly “gifted” him with such “quirks” that another would have refused to work as an investigator, prosecutor, would have changed his profession. However, as it turned out, this is not for him. Stubborn, principled, extremely active – he was always “on the front lines”. It is not for nothing that US President Donald Trump in June last year, during a debate with Biden, called him guilty of “terrible corruption” in the dismissal of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine V. Shokin. Today, Viktor Mykolayovych is a guest of the Ukrainian University and our conversation about life, prosecutorial work and the “quirks” of fate that it prepares for each of us.
– Viktor Mykolayovych, let’s start our conversation with your investigative work. This work is difficult, nerve-wracking, and not always thankless. What “kept” you in it, after all, you have worked as an investigator for almost thirty years?
– Yes, that’s true. I’ve devoted almost 30 years to the investigation. After graduating from the Kharkiv Law Institute, I worked for 8 years as an investigator in the Moscow District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv, then for 6 years as a “heavyweight” (this is the professional slang term for investigators in particularly important cases – ed.) in the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office. I usually dealt with complex cases – murders, robberies, rape, bribery, etc. You know, for me, to some extent, it was work on an idea based on law and justice. And today I feel some nostalgia for this approach to work, for the years of my youth, for my devotion to the profession.
“The Gongadze Case”
– At one time, you were involved in the investigation into the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze .
– I consider this to be the main case of the 2000s. The journalist’s body, as is known, was found in November 2000, but for almost two years the investigation did not actually move forward. I think there were people in the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were directly interested in ensuring that this murder, which caused such a big political storm, was never solved. I came to Ukraine as Deputy Prosecutor General in July 2002, and the next day I convened a meeting on the G. Gongadze case. And such meetings (on this case in particular) were held every day – at eight in the evening in my office. I can say that by the end of the summer we already knew the names of all four perpetrators of the murder, including a high-ranking police official – the head of the criminal investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Oleksiy Pukach. At the time of the crime, he headed the Department of External Supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the so-called “outside”, so our investigators had to go through “all the circles of hell” just to get the “outside” documents.
We were sure that the murder of Georgy Gongadze was organized by Oleksiy Pukach, but we did not have the necessary evidence that could be presented in court. Therefore, in 2003, O. Pukach was “caught” for destroying secret documents that indicated that the journalist was being monitored. He burned some of these documents to hide the traces of the murder. Pukach then served four months in a pre-trial detention center, but a team arrived and the murderer was released on a recognizance not to leave. Of course, he escaped, and we were all released from the Prosecutor General’s Office, together with the then Prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun. By the way, he had nothing to do with the investigation of this case, except that he did not interfere. So the investigation stopped. Later, when I returned to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine in 2005, I resumed the investigation, gathering the same investigative group. However, by that time, the SBU, which was headed by Oleksandr Turchynov after the Orange Revolution, began to compete with us (and, I must say, greatly interfered with our work).
For some reason, he believed that Oleksiy Pukach was hiding in Israel. It is not known what this idea was based on. On the contrary, I intuitively felt that the murderer of G. Gongadze had not gone abroad, but had “laid low” somewhere here, in Ukraine. In 2005, O. Turchynov even sent a group of his specialists, led by Andriy Kozhemyakin, to Israel to arrest Pukach. I warned A. Kozhemyakin that it was necessary to draw up the relevant documents, without which no one in Israel would lift a finger to help. And so it happened, the SBU investigators were ignored. A. Kozhemyakin’s group stayed in Israel for a week, no one accepted them. Then the relevant services did ask for documents from the GPU. Then they stayed for several more weeks. In the end, they returned with nothing. After all, Gongadze’s murderer was not in Israel. My suspicions that the killer did not flee Ukraine were confirmed only in 2009, when O. Pukach was found in a village lost in the middle of the forests in the Zhytomyr region. Then he was brought to justice and is serving his sentence to this day. However, the case of Georgy Gongadze is still unfinished. The main thing that remains is to expose the customer, who lives peacefully in Ukraine (I have my own opinion about his personality).
“White Brotherhood”
Another high-profile case of that time was the case of the so-called “White Brotherhood”, an esoteric sect of totalitarian orientation. It should be said that at that time, thousands of people throughout Ukraine and beyond fell under the influence of two swindlers, manipulators of consciousness – Yuriy Kryvonogov and Marina Tsvygun. Fleeing from the apocalypse prophesied by the ideologists of the “White Brotherhood”, people abandoned their families and donated their money, apartments and other property to the sect. In November 1993, the sectarians seized Sofia Kyivska and were going to burn themselves. Kryvonogov and Tsvygun were arrested by law enforcement officers. I remember that during interrogations, the suspect demanded that she not be called Marina, but exclusively by her ritual name – Maria Devi Christos. It seems to me that this young beautiful woman, under the influence of her mentor’s suggestions, sincerely believed in her “divine” mission and that she was the “reincarnation” of the Virgin Mary. We investigated the case of the “White Brotherhood” and brought it to trial. It is true that many of the sect’s adherents were found to have mental disorders, but M. Tsvygun herself was found guilty. She received four years in prison, Yu. Krivonogov – six. They served their sentences.
The most difficult in terms of security and multi-episodes, I would note the case of the Gromov gang, which operated in Zaporizhia, as well as in Western Ukraine and in Rostov, Russia. This gang was responsible for 16 murders and about 70 robberies, including on banking institutions, etc. While working on this case, I lived in Zaporizhia for almost three years. This is a case that I am still proud of investigating. The “Zaryzyaks”, and there were 17 of them, received long sentences, three of them, including Gromov, received life imprisonment.
Incomplete term as Prosecutor General
– Mr. Victor, please tell us about your “unfinished term” as Prosecutor General? How did you feel about your dismissal?
– After the Maidan, at the end of June 2014, I was invited to work at the Prosecutor General’s Office as a deputy prosecutor. My area of responsibility included supervision of compliance with the law by the “law enforcement” agencies – the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Tax Service. Although, of course, the investigative direction of the Prosecutor General’s Office was closer to me. I admit that when I later received an offer to head the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, it came as a complete surprise to me. I remember how one day in early February 2015, Vitaliy Yarema, the then Prosecutor General of Ukraine, called and said that the President of Ukraine was waiting for us together. We arrived at Bankova Street. Yarema handed Petro Poroshenko a sheet of paper with a report on his resignation at his own request. The idea to put me at the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office belonged to the President. I think P. Poroshenko was looking for a professional in his immediate circle, but could not find one. Probably a big role in my appointment was played by the fact that I had previously been Deputy Prosecutor General three times, as well as the fact that Petro Poroshenko knew me well. We had known each other for a long time, although we always addressed each other as “you.”
Obviously, my equidistance from politicians was also important. My aversion to PR probably also played a role, and vice versa – my respect for real work with results. On February 10, 2015, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko submitted for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada a resolution to dismiss Vitaliy Yarema from the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine and appoint me to this post. The Parliament then expressed considerable confidence in me – 318 votes “in favor”, that is, more than the constitutional majority. Thus, I became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, of the entire Ukrainian people, and not P. Poroshenko. I then frankly told Petro Oleksiyovych about this to his face. And I testified to this, speaking from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada on the day of my appointment.
I think that for the deputies who supported my candidacy, the decisive factor was that I am not a politician, but a professional lawyer, and my entire career has shown that I have always been guided by the rule of law, the interests of Ukraine, the law, and the professional tasks of the Prosecutor General’s Office. At the Prosecutor General’s Office, I fully concentrated on my work and even refused the “fashionable” foreign trips at that time (I did not make a single business trip to the countries of the European Union, the USA, or anywhere else). All foreign trips were “worked out” by my deputies from specialized areas. At that time, I identified several tasks as priorities for myself: the Maidan cases, the fight against corruption, and the reform of the prosecutor’s office.
In the spring of 2015, I initiated the creation of the General Inspectorate, an internal security body whose functions included, among other things, the detection of corruption in the Prosecutor General’s Office. And already on March 6, 2015, I presented a step-by-step strategy for reforming the prosecutor’s office. This also included the introduction of prosecutorial self-government – the creation of a council of prosecutors and a qualification and disciplinary commission, in whose work the Prosecutor General had no right to interfere, which was truly unprecedented for our system.
I organized an open competition with the participation of international experts, thus creating the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). After the appointment of the head of the SAP, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine was finally able to start working in full. As for the Maidan cases as a whole, I had reason to predict that we would be able to complete the main episodes by approximately the end of 2016. However, they did not allow me to do this because I was dismissed.
The fact that it was under my leadership that the Prosecutor General’s Office began to “produce” investigation results, work effectively, and reform itself became noticeable in the summer of 2015. The then European Union Ambassador to Ukraine, Jan Tombinski, stated in an interview: “We have not seen such reform work in Ukraine for many years as in the last four months.”
– How did the story of your dismissal from the position of Prosecutor General of Ukraine unfold?
– Now I can’t even remember the day and time when Petro Poroshenko first hinted that he wanted to remove me from office, but it’s certain that it all started with talks about Burisma. He said that there’s no need to force the investigation, D. Biden is unhappy because his son is on the board of directors. We need to understand Ukraine’s dependence on American, that is, D. Biden’s, support, and the like. Petro Poroshenko didn’t say: close the cases. Actually, he wouldn’t have dared to tell me that, because he knew very well that this was the height of lawlessness, and I, and he knew this very well, respect the law. His insistent “don’t put pressure on Burisma,” rather read as a recommendation to “put the brakes on the case.” One of the bright episodes that signaled that Joe Biden was unhappy with the Prosecutor General of Ukraine in connection with the Burisma case was the statement of US Ambassador Jeffrey Pyatt. On September 25, 2015, during a business forum in Odessa, he suddenly declared that “the results of the investigation in the Burisma case are unsatisfactory.”
– Aren’t you surprised that the ambassador chose this particular case out of thousands of criminal cases?
– In my opinion, this happened because he was the thought leader of Vice President D. Biden, and among many proceedings, he was only interested in the Burisma case. I can say that it was a shock for the entire law enforcement system and a double shock for all diplomats accredited in Ukraine, because ambassadors do not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the country in which they are staying. Such a statement by Payette looked nothing less than the brazen interference of a plenipotentiary representative of a foreign state in the course of a criminal investigation. Such an assessment of the American ambassador puzzled not only Ukrainian investigators and diplomats, but even the British embassy in Ukraine. A few hours later, his employee, the international liaison officer of the National Crime Agency, Patrick Torkington, addressed an official message to the Main Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, in which he stated that “neither he nor his country understand the motives of the statement of the US ambassador to Ukraine.” “British law enforcement agencies, which participated in the investigation of criminal cases related to Burisma and, in accordance with a court decision in London, blocked M. Zlochevsky’s bank accounts for 23 million US dollars in the spring of 2014, were, to put it mildly, surprised by such an assessment from the US ambassador,” the report said.
To be honest, this case, Burisma, was not my priority in my work. Of course, I was well informed about how the investigation was progressing, what new things the investigators had “dug up,” what new facts they had discovered. However, I kept the Maidan cases and the crimes of V. Yanukovych and his government officials, the rescue of Ukrainian prisoners of war captured in Donbas in the foreground. There was an immense amount of work, it lasted around the clock. I worked almost without days off. The President of Ukraine, P. Poroshenko, reminded me more about Burisma. Since the fall of 2015, more and more often. He was irritated, the tension between us was growing. Around that time, sporadic attacks on me began in the media. And there was even an attempt on my life – on November 2, 2015, an unknown assailant shot at the windows of the Prosecutor General’s office on Riznytska Street. I was saved then by the armored glass, which was prudently installed by V. Pshonka (Prosecutor General during the time of V. Yanukovych). So, in the fall of 2015, our official relations with the President of Ukraine were quite tense. It became increasingly obvious that a strong and independent Prosecutor General was no longer of interest to Bankova. At the same time, I am sure that the decision on my resignation was made by Petro Poroshenko much earlier than our principled conversation about it took place (three months earlier). I heard that back in November 2015, Yuriy Lutsenko asked P. Poroshenko to appoint him Prosecutor General…
– So what was the quintessence, actually the main reason for your dismissal, because everything didn’t look so bad at the GPU?
– According to my information, my resignation was discussed by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and the US Secretary of State John Kerry. “…I just wanted to try to urge you to understand whether there is a way to solve this problem (replacing the Prosecutor General of Ukraine V. Shokin). I know that the Vice President is very concerned about this. And I think it would be good to try to find some solution to the problem,” said D. Kerry at the time. Petro Oleksiyovych approached the “solution to the problem” defined by the US Secretary of State and dictated by Vice President Joseph Biden “originally” – he called me to him and tried to “scare” me: “Biden is going to Kyiv and will bring data on you regarding corruption,” he said. I remember shrugging his shoulders: “Well, let him bring it.” Because he knew that corruption-related incriminating evidence against me could only be invented. On December 15, 2015, Joe Biden did fly to Kyiv for a visit, and politicians and political scientists in Ukraine were lost in conjectures about the essence of this trip. Now it is clear that D. Biden’s visit had no other purpose than to try to hide his connection with the corrupt Ukrainian gas production company Burisma. The only thing that D. Biden brought “to me” was a dose of political poison. He blackmailed Petro Poroshenko by saying that a credit tranche of 1 billion US dollars would not be issued to Ukraine if the President of Ukraine did not dismiss me from the post of Prosecutor General. And I agreed to this because I understood how much my warring Ukraine needed the funds.
– Viktor Mykolayovych, we know that you have prepared a book for publication in which you talk about the most resonant illegal actions of the then authorities. What exactly is it about, can you open the curtain at least a little?
– I won’t say much. The book you are talking about will be published soon, so you can read it. Its main theme is the idea of justice, it, this justice, exists and we must fight for it. I can be criticized for a lot, because in my work I sometimes walked on the edge of a knife, talking about the requirements of the law, demanding its fair observance. It is clear that not everyone liked it. Although in my work I have always strived to achieve several goals that, of course, will benefit Ukraine and the United States. First of all, I want to restore justice and prove in court that I was fired in 2016 at the request of the then US Vice President Joseph Biden, which he himself told reporters at a press conference. However, Biden’s goal was to stop the investigation of criminal cases against the Ukrainian company Burisma, whose board of directors at that time was his son Hunter. I also have my own version of the investigation into the case of journalist Pavel Sheremet, who was murdered in 2016. I am sure that the clients and organizers of this crime can still be identified. I must say that there are several investigations of international corruption in Ukraine that I have started, which I consider it a matter of honor to complete. And I also have a duty to conduct a full investigation into the corruption of Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine. And my book is about that.
– And the last question, tell me, do you communicate with former employees, colleagues, or are you involved in community activities, because little has been heard about you since your dismissal.
– In my book, I describe in detail the event of my dismissal. As for communication with colleagues, it happens, constantly and actively. We are all worried about our prosecutor’s office, we all want positive changes.
– Thank you, Viktor Mykolayovych, for your specific and interesting answers.
Communicated by Viktor KOVALSKY