Alina Lebedieva, a live-in girlfriend of Yevhen Sokur, the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, opened a business less than three months after his appointment. After a year of working as a sole proprietor, the 27-year-old opened a flower boutique in the heart of Kyiv in the Leonardo business center, UNN reports.
Earlier, during the investigation into the alleged attempted assassination attempt, Yevhen Sokur told law enforcement officers that since 2016 he had been living with a girl named Alina in an apartment at 6-D Lobanovskoho Avenue. Following a deputy appeal from Nina Yuzhanina, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, the NACP launched an inspection of Yevhen Sokur . In response to a request from UNN, the Agency also confirmed that they are monitoring the official's lifestyle. Kateryna Butko, head of the Public Council at the NAPC, noted that the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is checking whether Sokur and his partner Alina lived together.
It turned out that it was Alina Lebedeva. According to former MP Ihor Mosiychuk, the NACP sent a request to Ukrainian banks as part of the monitoring of Yevhen Sokur's lifestyle, asking financial institutions to provide information about the accounts of Alina Lebedieva, her parents, and her brother. The NACP also wants to check the accounts of Sokur's live-in girlfriend.
According to the Youcontrol system, Alina Lebedieva registered as a sole proprietor on August 3, 2022. The main KVED of activity is retail sale of flowers, plants, seeds, fertilizers, pets and pet food in specialized stores.
It is worth noting that Sokur was promoted to a senior position in the tax service less than three months earlier, in May 2022. Is it a coincidence?
However, the story of Sokur's stunning success has only just begun. In the first year of her business, and at the same time the first and perhaps most difficult year of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Alina Lebedieva's business was doing so well that she decided to scale up.
On her birthday on November 1, 2023, she announced the opening of a flower boutique, and not anywhere else, but in the heart of the capital – in the Leonardo business center.
"Hi. I'm @lebedieva_alina and yesterday was my birthday. And yesterday, my long-awaited baby was born @lebedeva.flower.aesthetic I created this space with love for flowers and people So we will be happy to make your most cherished floral dreams come true. For ordering beauty:
-Direct - Leonardo Business Center: Kyiv, 19-21 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St.," Alina Lebedieva posted on the boutique's Instagram page.
It looks like someone gave their beloved girlfriend a holiday present.
By the way, when studying Yevhen Sokur's declarations , UNN found that in 2022 he declared income from the sale of securities in the amount of UAH 2.6 million, but these funds were not reflected in his declaration for 2023. This may indicate a violation of the law requiring notification of significant changes in property status. According to Article 52 of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption," the declarant is obliged to report such changes within 10 days. Nina Yuzhanina sent the relevant information to the NACP.
However, his declaration included $80,000 in cash. Some may say that he exchanged hryvnias for dollars, but it is worth recalling that at that time the National Bank's ban on buying foreign currency was in effect. So which of the laws Sokur allegedly violated is still an open question.
But let's get back to Alina's success story. According to Serhiy Dorotych, head of the #SaveFOP movement, it is not easy to run a flower business and it will be really profitable only if you have VIP clients.
"I will just explain the essence of the flower business, it is very specific, I know it directly, because my friends rented certain premises from me, and now they even rent and conduct this flower business. As they said, You can invest as much money as you want, be, as they say, extremely talkative and agile, but you will not succeed if you have only ordinary clients who, you know, go there to buy some flowers for your wife, on March 8 or on her birthday – this business does not take off at all. You must have clients who pay you by bank transfer and order bouquets of 100 roses, and so on. That is, it is the Cabinet of ministers, it is the Government quality of the organization, deputies. If you have a way out for this, then this business will flourish," Dorotich said in an exclusive comment to UNN.
According to him, even before the full-scale invasion, creating a working, profitable business in this area was a problem. You need to have clients, serious clients, and that's the only way to make money.
"Of course, if Mr. Sokur has found the right clients, you can make money (on the boutique - ed.), and make money very quickly," Dorotych said.
However, he does not rule out that the stunning success of Sokur's roommate may be related to another very interesting aspect. "But this business can also be used to legalize certain funds. You can order a bouquet, pay for it, and not pick it up. If it's a simplified taxation system, and a budget organization has passed it through, they don't care about VAT. The losses will be 5-6%. They will cash out and that's it," Dorotych said.
However, if we look at the situation from this angle, the question arises: who should check the purity of the transactions of the sole proprietorship of the partner of one of the country's top tax officials? The tax authorities?
Lawyer Oleksiy Bahanets in an exclusive comment to UNN said that of course Sokur can choose who he lives with and marries. However, in his declaration, he is obliged to indicate information about the person with whom he lives together.
"When filling out the declaration, he is obliged to indicate how much income even a common-law wife had and has. why? Because this is joint farming. It, of course, assumes that he must show about the income of his common-law wife. this is unequivocal," the lawyer stressed.
According to him, the NACP should carefully examine this situation, including whether there is a conflict of interest. After all, the audit may raise the question of whether Sokur should continue to hold his position.
Recall
A criminal investigation is being conducted against Sokur for a malfeasance in office. This case was opened by the SBI on November 4, 2022, under Part 3 of Article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, on the fact of abuse of office by Sokur, who signed an order on October 26, 2022, to revoke Ukrtatnafta's license for fuel production. Such actions of the official, according to the investigation, caused serious consequences for the company and the state in the form of the inability to fulfill the mobilization tasks of the Ministry of Defense for the production and supply of petroleum products for the needs of defense and the state's defense capability. The State Bureau of Investigation informed UNN that this criminal proceeding is still under investigation.
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