The political independence of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency under the leadership of Olena Duma raises doubts due to possible backroom influences and unclear personnel decisions. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Oleh Shram, a lawyer and former advisor to the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation.
He drew attention to the existence of the position of deputy for European integration in the agency, which, in his opinion, is strange for an anti-corruption body established in accordance with European standards.
I was very surprised by this story, because this body is part of the system of anti-corruption bodies created as a result of a long anti-corruption reform, and it is created, as they often say, according to the best international standards. And I wonder what the Deputy for European Integration does and what he does there, in fact. Why is there such a position there if this body was originally created according to European standards, what kind of European integration are we talking about?
The lawyer also called for finding out who exactly attends meetings with the ARMA leadership and what role they play.
If a person does not hold any position there (in ARMA - ed.), then the question is what they do at certain meetings and what they do there. If we look through this prism to see whether he has influence on her or not, then... the question is how she (Olena Duma - ed.) reacts to this influence, whether she succumbs to it or not, or whether she takes some other action
According to him, with modern technology, it is possible to exert illegal influence on certain state processes.
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Allegations of possible influence on the head of the ARMA, Olena Duma, have been made repeatedly. In particular, recently it became known about possible backroom agreements taking place in the ARMA under the leadership of Olena Duma. According to UNN's informed sources, a close associate of the former deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Viktor Yanukovych, Andriy Portnov, lawyer and former MP Valeriy Pysarenko, regularly comes to the ARMA headquarters in Kyiv to meet personally with Olena Duma. The purpose of his visit is allegedly to discuss the transfer of large seized assets in favor of certain influential people, including Yulia Tymoshenko. Among these assets was, for example, the Gulliver shopping center in Kyiv.
Immediately after the publication of this material, the ARMA was quick to disassociate itself from these visits. They stated that there were no visitors with the name Valeriy Pysarenko in the log, and that Olena Duma was "not familiar" with the former MP at all.
However, they forgot to mention that you can enter their headquarters through four more "back" entrances and climb through a window and two fire escapes that have no visitor or security logs.
In addition, there have been numerous statements about the alleged cooperation of ARMA Head Olena Duma with pro-Russian politicians. Former MP Ihor Mosiychuk even called Olena Duma a "state Duma" because, in his opinion, she works more in the interests of the aggressor country than in favor of Ukraine. In particular, there are suspicions of her cooperation with former traitor MP Viktor Medvedchuk, as well as fugitive Yanukovych minister Oleksandr Klymenko.
The website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine even posted a petition calling for the dismissal of Olena Duma as head of the ARMA due to her alleged ties to pro-Russian politicians and ineffective management of seized assets.