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Ukrainian police detains Naftogaz Chairman of Board Yevhen Bakulin

Searches were carried out in the company’s headquarters on Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street in Kiev

Yevhen Bakulin ITAR-TASS/Alexei Ivanov

Yevhen Bakulin

© ITAR-TASS/Alexei Ivanov

KIEV, March 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior Affairs has detained on Friday Chairman of the Board of national oil and gas company Naftogaz Yevhen Bakulin within the framework of investigation of major corruption schemes in the gas industry. Parliament-appointed Minister of Interior Affairs Arsen Avakov said this in a statement. He added that only within 3 episodes of actions committed by the criminal group and investigated by the ministry’s Investigative Department, the sum of losses inflicted to the state makes about $4 billion.

“Meanwhile, this is not the complete list of suspicious schemes and transactions that attracted the attention of our investigators. I’m afraid the uncompromised investigation carried out today would lead only to immense sums of losses inflicted to many famous personalia that have to do with it. In particular, to those from the past and present political elite,” Avakov noted.

He warned politicians from interfering with the investigation. “I warn that I will be sharply, and even in public, react on every attempt of putting pressure on the investigation,” Avakov stressed.

Investigative actions were being carried out in the headquarters of Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz, Kiev police reported on Friday.

Eyewitnesses said “in the office on Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street and near the building, there are armed people in masks”. One of the company’s employees said that the “office work has been paralyzed, searches and confiscation of documents are underway”.

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