The reboot of the Bureau of Economic Security, which has been underway since the appointment of its new director, Oleksandr Tsyvinskyi, in 2025, has already produced its first telling result. According to the head of the BES himself, 74% of the Bureau's management failed the first stage of the certification process. This only confirms that society's demand for an audit of the criminal cases investigated by this law enforcement agency is entirely justified, UNN writes.
"The first stage of the certification of managers has been completed. Twelve people successfully passed the certification. This is a reboot of 74% of the management", – Tsyvinskyi reported .
According to him, the second stage is currently underway. Of the 915 employees, 887 law enforcement officers achieved the passing score. After it is completed, interviews with the commissions will take place.
"At the same time, we are preparing the fourth wave: more than 60 new employees", Tsyvinskyi added.
In practice, this means that most of the managers who had previously determined the work of the BES's territorial offices and central administration were unable to confirm their suitability for the positions they held.
The staff renewal itself is a positive signal, and Tsyvinskyi promises that the reboot will not be a mere formality. However, it raises another, no less important question: if the managers who made key administrative decisions do not meet the criteria of the new system, then how lawful and well-founded were the decisions made under their leadership? And most importantly, what will happen to the criminal cases initiated during their tenure, about which businesses complain as pressure?
A logical way out of the situation would be a full audit of the high-profile criminal proceedings that were opened and investigated before the BES reboot.
It is necessary to examine not only the people, but also their decisions
Over the past two years, the BES has repeatedly become the target of criticism from businesses, lawyers, industry associations and the expert community.
The criticism concerned not individual decisions, but systemic approaches:
- the use of analytical reports as the de facto basis for initiating criminal prosecution;
- the initiation of criminal proceedings despite the absence of agreed tax liabilities;
- the disregard of the results of documentary audits conducted by the State Tax Service;
- conducting searches and seizing property before establishing any fact of wrongdoing, which led to the suspension of companies' operations and reputational losses.
Such decisions are impossible without the approval of the heads of investigative groups, whose work is supervised by the heads of territorial divisions, who ultimately failed to pass the professional suitability examinations.
Therefore, it is obvious that such cases require an audit and, if their lack of grounds is confirmed, should be closed due to the absence of the elements of a crime.
Aviation cases — a telling example
One of the clearest examples from which such an audit could begin is the criminal proceedings against Ukrainian airlines.
Over the past few months, UNN has covered these cases in detail, while dozens of lawyers, attorneys, tax consultants and representatives of the aviation industry have drawn attention to numerous legal gaps in the BES's position.
These are criminal proceedings opened over the international leasing of aircraft.
The BES changed its long-standing approach to applying tax legislation and began claiming that payments to non-residents for the lease of aircraft constitute royalties, although neither tax practice nor international conventions on the avoidance of double taxation provide for such an interpretation. The official basis for initiating the investigations was identical analytical conclusions that the BES received from tax officials.
This change in approach served as the basis for multimillion-hryvnia additional tax assessments and the initiation of criminal proceedings against at least five Ukrainian airlines — MAU, "Constanta Airline", "Urga", H3Operations and "Skyline"
At the same time, experts have repeatedly drawn attention to a number of circumstances that cast doubt on the validity of such cases.
Lawyers and certified tax specialists who analyzed these criminal proceedings immediately drew attention to several fundamental points.
In particular, they emphasized that the problem itself arose only in 2024 following a new interpretation of the tax rules, although the rules governing the taxation of international leasing had remained unchanged for decades. The specialists also pointed to the need for an official general tax clarification from the Ministry of Finance due to the lack of a unified approach among state authorities to the application of the legislation. The priority of international conventions over domestic law in the field of international taxation was also emphasized.
In addition, the State Tax Service reported that the airlines had undergone tax inspections, and a violation in the taxation of aircraft leasing was identified in only one airline; the remaining air carriers received no objections.
According to the lawyers, the results of comprehensive documentary audits by the State Tax Service should have been among the key pieces of evidence in such criminal proceedings. And ignoring the tax authority's conclusions without new evidence or new circumstances casts doubt on the validity of the criminal prosecution itself.
Lawyers also draw particular attention to judicial practice, which has repeatedly emphasized that criminal liability for tax evasion is impossible without a duly agreed tax liability. Moreover, there are already nearly a dozen court decisions by courts of various instances indicating that transport leasing cannot be treated as royalties.
Despite this, the investigations continued.
There Will Be No Reset Without an Audit
The story of the cases against the airlines demonstrates why resetting the BEB cannot be limited to personnel changes alone. If the majority of the managers who made decisions to open and oversee high-profile criminal proceedings did not pass certification, the state must also answer another question: were the decisions they made lawful and well-founded?
That is why an independent audit of the BEB's criminal cases should become the next stage of reforming the agency. First and foremost, the proceedings that have already drawn numerous comments from lawyers, involve contradictory court practice, and show signs of the possible use of criminal proceedings as an instrument of pressure on business require review. Only in this way will the reset of the BEB become not a formal change of leadership, but a genuine reform capable of restoring business's trust in the law enforcement system and ensuring that such practices never recur.