The other day, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos suspended his first deputy from his duties for the duration of the pre-trial investigation into the alleged leak of information to the Bureau. On the eve of this event, it was reported that one of the NABU investigators and the former head of the Brovary District State Administration, Georgiy Birkadze, were searched as part of the investigation into possible leaks. UNN decided to take a closer look at Birkadze's personality and his alleged involvement in leaks of information about criminal proceedings.
Recently, Birkadze has been appearing in the media as a political expert. He even appeared on the air of a telethon, where, however, he attracted attention not for his in-depth analysis, but for a very characteristic remark.
Birkadze was invited to the marathon as a guest to comment on the second tranche of the agreed EU macro-financial assistance program Ukraine Facility worth EUR 1.5 billion. The expert noted that Ukraine is doing everything to strengthen its defense capabilities. However, something went wrong after that.
“Today, we know that 37 billion was stolen for the reconstruction, or, sorry, invested in fortifications,” Birkadze said.
A "hole" in the NABU
On May 23, it became known that NABU detective Valeriy Polyuga and former head of the Brovary District State Administration Heorhiy Birkadze were being searched. The reason for such actions was the disclosure of pre-trial investigation data by NABU representatives in the interests of, among others, businessman Yuriy Holyk, who is a defendant in the Big Construction anti-corruption investigation.
Later, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office officially confirmed the searches of the current NABU employee.
The next day, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos suspended his first deputy, Gizo Uglava, from his duties and leadership for the duration of the pre-trial investigation into the alleged information leak.
"To ensure an objective pre-trial investigation into the alleged information leak, the NABU Director has ordered, based on a statement of a possible conflict of interest, to remove the First Deputy Director of the NABU from his duties and management of the areas and units set out in internal documents. We will inform the public about the course and results of the pre-trial investigation," the Bureau said in a statement.
Investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov pointed out that the leakage of information had been going on for a long time and under different leaders.
“And Birkadze received this information from someone who had access to very different areas of NABU's activities under both Sytnyk and Kryvonos. Obviously, it is neither Sytnyk nor Kryvonos)))) Who then? ...I have been following corruption for a very long time. And I could not remember who else among the top officials in the executive branch and law enforcement agencies would have held their position without leaving since 2015. In fact, only Uglava, who came to NABU with the Georgian team as the first deputy head, has been there all this time. He's too busy, too dizzy with power,” suggested Nikolov.
“Yevhen Shevchenko, an NABU agent and the first official corruption whistleblower, explicitly states that Uglava and Birkadze are friends.
"A total of 23 possible cases of information leakage are currently being investigated, which Uglava passed on to his close friend Georgiy Birkadze, the former head of the Brovary District State Administration, who, in turn, reported it to those in relation to whom the detectives were conducting covert investigative and search operations," he wrote on his Facebook page.
Giorgi Birkadze was born in Georgia. According to publicly available information, he has been living in Ukraine since 1992, and since 2006 he has been living in the capital. He is engaged in the construction business. In September 2020, he was appointed head of the Brovary District State Administration. According to Birkadze himself, Vasyl Volodin, then head of the Kyiv Regional Administration, was fascinated by his idea to build a waste processing plant. This was the reason for Birkadze's appointment as head of the district administration. However, journalists also had another version of Birkadze's appointment, saying that he was lobbied by Mykhailo Brodsky and his business partner Nestor Shufrych, who were interested in having their own man to organize illegal sand mining. Journalists even assumed that Birkadze receives up to 100 thousand dollars a month with the assistance of the “sand mafia.”
Birkadze was dismissed from his post as head of the DSA on March 29, 2021. Interestingly, after that Brovary DSA was headed by Pavlo Proskochylo, whom the media call Birkadze's godfather. Proskochylo came to the attention of law enforcement officers in a case of bribery for permission to travel abroad for a volunteer who was supposed to bring bulletproof vests to Ukraine.
After leaving office, Birkadze began to actively promote himself as a political and economic expert. We wrote about the results of this above. However, the analysis of open information suggests that Birkadze has not abandoned his active business activities.
A little bit about business
Birkadze was the founder of BRK Holding Group LLC, which is part of the Stroy Garant Invest group of companies. Companies from this group have repeatedly received contracts to repair sewers at large facilities in Kyiv: in 2018, AK Kyivvodokanal signed an agreement with Nateko Energy Installation LLC to repair sewers near Dnipro worth UAH 370 million. Interestingly, the ultimate beneficiary of BRK Holding Group is now Lia Neshta, the sister of Giorgi Birkadze. But that's not all - the co-owners of Nateko Energo Montazhnya LLC have long been Giorgi Birkadze's wife Olga and her brother. Another structure, BRK Hydroservice, which in 2018 won a tender for the repair of the storm sewer on Livoberezhna Street for 133 million without disclosing the prices of construction materials at all, now belongs, in particular, to Oleksiy Neshta (probably the husband of Giorgi Birkadze's sister).
According to media reports, in 2017-2021, four companies associated with Birkadze - Nateko Energo Montazh, Stroy Garant Group, BRK Thermotechnology and BRK Hydroservice - received contracts worth UAH 942.65 million.
The performance of these and other contracting works has repeatedly attracted the attention of law enforcement. In particular, in 2020, the National Police investigated proceedings in which it suspected the then actual owners of Nateko of corrupt ties with the leadership of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which allowed them to overstate the actual scope and cost of reconstruction of the game hall at the Olympic NSC Koncha Zaspa. The total cost of the work exceeded UAH 156 million.
The above are just examples that demonstrate a small part of the companies and episodes of the Birkadze family's business activities. According to blogger Volodymyr Bondarenko, Georgiy Birkadze was involved in the case of construction near the Botanical Gardens in Kyiv, where many developers and investors have "appeared" over the past 20 years, including Mukhtar Ablyazov, Voitsekhivskyi, and Vavrysh.