On January 15, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv will begin consideration of the merits of the case on the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation under the lawsuit filed by the owner of Gulliver Construction and Development Company, Viktor Polishchuk, against the Asset Recovery and Management Agency over the statement of its head, Olena Duma, about the businessman's alleged Russian connections. This was reported by a UNN correspondent from the courtroom.
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Viktor Polishchuk filed a lawsuit against ARMA to protect his honor, dignity and business reputation. In a commentary to UNN, the businessman explainedthat such a step was forced by a public statement by the agency's head, Olena Duma, that he and his wife had "close relations with the Kremlin elite." Polishchuk emphasized that this information was fictitious and untrue.
In response to a request from UNN, ARMA head Olena Duma explainedthat she accused Polishchuk and his wife of having ties to the "Kremlin elite" because she saw such information in the media.
The court initially scheduled the hearing for October 10, but the defendant's lawyer was unable to provide a document confirming that he was authorized to represent ARMA in court. Therefore, the hearing was postponed to November 14.
Today, the court hearing finally took place. Representatives of Viktor Polishchuk and ARMA said that they were fully familiarized with the case file, and the court decided to "close the preparatory hearing and set the case for consideration on the merits." The first hearing is scheduled for January 15.
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Viktor Polishchuk's openness to public defense of his honor, dignity and business reputation due to the official's statement about his possible Russian connections attracted journalists' interest. After researching this topic, they found out that the information that Viktor Polishchuk's wife, Lilia Rizva, was allegedly the niece of the wife of Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev, appeared in 2015-2016. It was disseminated by the then current MP Pavlo Rizanenko in his blogs, but he never provided evidence of this information. UNN asked Rizanenko to provide documents that would confirm his assumptions, but he refused to comment, citing the fact that he has not been a public figure since 2019.
It can be assumed that Rizanenko's reaction is caused by the fact that he actually has nothing to provide to confirm the widespread theses, and he was simply "working out" his goals in 2015-2016.