Court once again did not allow the NABU detective to close the case regarding Shabunin's organization of fictitious secondments to the NAPC - veteran

The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) has once again overturned another decision by a NABU detective, which was supposed to close the criminal proceedings regarding the fictitious secondment of mobilized activist Vitaliy Shabunin from the 207th Territorial Defense Battalion to the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). It is likely that the next step will be to serve him with a notice of suspicion. A copy of the ruling by the investigating judge of the HACC was published by blogger and veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Volodymyr Boyko.

"The investigating judge of the HACC overturned the NABU detective's decision to close the criminal proceedings regarding the abuse of power by NACP Director Novikov and NACP Deputy Director Sytnyk, who arranged fictitious secondments to this institution for their friends from among the soldiers of the 207th separate Territorial Defense Battalion. Instead of interrogating Novikov and Sytnyk and obtaining temporary access to the documents of the military unit where the draft dodgers Shabunin and Sherembei were fictitiously listed as serving, the detective closed the case on the grounds that 'on 04.03.2025, Shabunin V.V. was interrogated as a witness, from whose testimony it follows that he is not acquainted with Sherembei D.O. and knows nothing about the circumstances of his military service or secondment to the NACP,'" Boyko wrote.

According to the investigating judge's ruling, the decision to close criminal proceedings No. 52025000000000070 of 12.02.2025 was issued without a proper clarification of all circumstances relevant to the adoption of the appropriate procedural decision. That is, the decision of 01.05.2025 does not meet the criteria of reasonableness of the procedural decision, is premature, and is subject to cancellation, it states.

In January of this year, it became known that the investigating judge of the HACC canceled the decision of NABU detective Biryukov to close criminal proceedings No. 52024000000000420 of 12.08.2024 regarding Vitaliy Shabunin. This was reported by the well-known lawyer Rostyslav Kravets. According to him, the investigating judge's ruling implied that in Shabunin's case, NABU detective Biryukov conducted the pre-trial investigation negligently. In particular, he did not investigate all signs of criminal offenses.

Earlier, Volodymyr Boyko published details of Shabunin's case. He noted that the command of the Territorial Defense Forces, during an inspection, found that in 2022-2023, soldier Shabunin, mobilized to the 207th separate Territorial Defense Battalion (military unit A7376), did not appear at his military unit, as he was considered "seconded to the NACP" based on letters from Novikov and Sytnyk. At the same time, Shabunin received not only monetary allowance but also additional remuneration for performing combat tasks amounting to UAH 30,000 per month, Boyko noted.

He also published materials about Shabunin's appropriation of a Nissan Pathfinder car, which was imported into Ukraine without customs duties for the needs of military unit A7376. To this day, Shabunin has not returned this car to military unit A7376 and uses it as his own property, the veteran reported.