The leadership of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) may face criminal liability due to attempts to mislead the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax, and Customs Policy during the presentation of the BES achievement report for 2025. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive comment to UNN by Denys Neviadomskyi, President of the All-Ukrainian Association of Retired Judges.
BES tried to pass off wishful thinking as reality
Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Rada's Tax Committee, criticized the Bureau of Economic Security for attempting to deceive committee members by using old data in reporting BES achievements for the past year, specifically regarding the restitution of damages to the state. According to him, law enforcement officers tried to inflate their performance indicators.
You won't let me lie—I am one of the first on my channel to publicly express sincere gratitude to the BES if something positive happens. But if you publish or announce unreliable data, you discredit yourself, us, and our entire cause. This cannot be. Look, you stated in the report that as a result of 2025, damages to the state were reimbursed in cash—you just confirmed this—in the amount of 3.8 billion UAH. Our analysis of the information you provided shows that 2.8-2.9 billion UAH is not from 2025 at all. It is from 2022 to 2024. Why are you writing unreliable data in the BES report?
According to him, the committee cross-checked specific payment orders indicating the dates of the payments. If only actual receipts for 2025 to the relevant budget accounts are considered, the reimbursement amount is only about 47 million UAH, not 3.8 billion UAH as the BES tried to claim.
Malfeasance in office
Inflating indicators of damage restitution to the state in BES reporting may have not only political but also legal consequences. This concerns possible official misconduct and even criminal liability for BES officials, believes retired judge Denys Neviadomskyi.
In his opinion, if the facts voiced by Hetmantsev are true, BES officials could be held accountable in several areas at once.
These are service-related crimes. In addition to general articles for official forgery (Art. 366 of the CCU) and abuse of power (Art. 364 of the CCU), special norms apply in this case: obstructing the activities of people's deputies and committees (Art. 351 of the CCU) – providing deliberately false information upon request or during reporting to a VRU committee is punishable by a fine, arrest, or restriction of liberty for up to three years
In addition to criminal law risks, the situation could have serious personnel consequences for the BES leadership. The retired judge recalled that the Law "On the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine" requires the BES to provide regular, transparent, and truthful reporting.
The discovery of falsifications in the report is a direct ground for declaring the work of the BES leadership unsatisfactory. This entails disciplinary liability for the Director of the BES before the Cabinet of Ministers
Crisis of confidence in the Bureau
Recently, complaints against the work of the Bureau of Economic Security have intensified significantly, particularly due to the exposure of BES employees in corruption, criticism from the business community regarding the use of criminal proceedings as a tool of pressure, and discussions about the need to audit cases investigated by the bureau.
According to Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, in two separate criminal proceedings, a senior detective of the BES territorial administration in the Kyiv region and an analyst of the Bureau's central office were exposed for using their official positions to obtain illegal benefits.
One, according to the investigation, demanded 15 thousand dollars from a man who had previously appeared in a case regarding the manufacture and sale of counterfeit money, in exchange for not bringing him to criminal responsibility again. The other promised a company representative to facilitate the issuance of a fuel storage license through his connections in the tax service for 2 thousand dollars.
A system that is supposed to protect the state's economy cannot be a place for those who try to use their position for personal enrichment
People's deputies interviewed by UNN stated the need for an audit of criminal proceedings investigated by the BES to check for potential contract-based motives. They also point to the need for a reboot and cleansing of the law enforcement agency.
BES persecutes Ukrainian aviation business
A series of criminal proceedings against air carriers could become a landmark case for checking the legality of criminal proceedings investigated by the Bureau of Economic Security. As UNN reported, the BES is investigating a number of cases regarding at least five Ukrainian airlines, including UIA, "Constanta Airline", "Urga", "H3OPERATIONS", and "Skyline". These air carriers lease aircraft abroad from non-resident companies of Ukraine. The Bureau is convinced that the airlines should pay royalties in Ukraine, i.e., a fee charged for the use of intellectual property. At the same time, the fact that transport is not intellectual property is completely ignored, and Conventions on the avoidance of double taxation are in force between Ukraine and a number of countries. According to these agreements, Ukrainian companies pay taxes specifically for leasing and in those countries where the lessor companies are residents.
It is on this legal construction, unsupported by legislation, that criminal proceedings for tax evasion are based. However, the problem is that such a position contradicts both international practice and court decisions that have already been established in Ukraine.
Ukrainian courts have repeatedly considered similar disputes regarding the rental and leasing of vehicles from non-residents and have sided with business, indicating that vehicle leasing is not a royalty.
This position is shared by specialized lawyers, tax experts, and specialists in the field of international taxation interviewed by UNN. They emphasize that international conventions on the avoidance of double taxation take precedence over internal interpretations of tax authorities, and leasing payments for transport cannot be equated to royalties.
That is why criminal proceedings against airlines increasingly resemble not a fight against economic crimes, but an attempt to create an artificial tax dispute through the mechanisms of criminal prosecution.