The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP) has begun an audit of the declarations and lifestyle of the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service (STS) Oleksandr Sokur. The reason was the opening of a flower business by his cohabitant, Alina Lebedeva, three months after Sokur was appointed to a high position.
The cohabitant of the NACP checks the declaration and lifestyle of the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service and his cohabitant , the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, Alina Lebedeva, opened a business less than three months after his appointment to the position. After a year of working as an individual entrepreneur, the 27-year-old girl opened a flower boutique in the very center of Kyiv in the Leonardo Business Center.
Earlier, during the investigation into the case of an alleged attempt on his life, Yevheniy Sokur himself told law enforcement officers that since 2016 he has been living with a girl named Alina in an apartment at 6-D Lobanovsky Avenue. However, in his declarations, Sokur never mentioned his roommate. After a parliamentary appeal by a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy Nina Yuzhanina, the NACP began an investigation into Yevheniy Sokur. The Agency also confirmed that they are monitoring the official's lifestyle. Kateryna Butko, Head of the Public Council at the NACP, noted that the National Agency for Corruption Prevention is checking whether Sokur and his roommate Alina lived together.
It turned out that this is Alina Lebedeva. According to former MP Ihor Mosiychuk, the NACP sent a request to Ukrainian banks as part of monitoring Yevheniy Sokur's lifestyle, asking financial institutions to provide information about the accounts of Alina Lebedeva, her parents, and her brother. The NACP also wants to check the accounts of Sokur's cohabitant, a sole proprietorship.
As indicated in the Youcontrol system, Alina Lebedeva registered an individual entrepreneur on August 3, 2022. The main KVED of activity is retail trade in flowers, plants, seeds, fertilizers, pets and their feed in specialized stores.
It is worth noting that Sokur received a leadership position in the tax service less than three months earlier - in May 2022. Coincidence?
However, the story of Sokur's roommate's dizzying success was just beginning. In the first year of her business, and at the same time the first and, perhaps, the most difficult year of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Alina Lebedeva's business was doing so well that she decided to scale up.
On her birthday, November 1, 2023, she announced the opening of a flower boutique, and nowhere else, but in the heart of the capital - in the Leonardo business center.
“Hello. I’m @lebedieva_alina and yesterday was my birthday. And yesterday my long-awaited baby @lebedeva.flower.aesthetic was born. I created this space with love for flowers and people. Therefore, we will be happy to fulfill your most cherished floral dreams. To order beauty:
-Direct – BC Leonardo: Kyiv, Bogdana Khmelnytskyi St. 19-21,” Alina Lebedeva reported on the boutique’s Instagram page.
It looks like someone gave their girlfriend a holiday present.
By the way, during the study of Yevheniy Sokur's declarations, it turned out that in 2022 he declared income from the sale of securities in the amount of UAH 2.6 million, however, these funds were not reflected in his declaration for 2023. This may indicate a violation of the legislation requiring reporting of significant changes in property status. According to Art. 52 of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption", the declarant is obliged to report such changes within 10 days. Nina Yuzhanina sent the relevant information to the NACP.
But, his declaration showed $80,000 in cash. Some might say that he exchanged hryvnias for dollars, but it is worth recalling that at that time the National Bank was banning the purchase of currency. So which law Sokur allegedly violated is still an open question.
But let's get back to Alina's success story. According to Serhiy Dorotich, head of the #SaveFOP Movement, running a flower business is not easy and it will only be truly profitable if there are VIP clients.
“I’ll just explain the essence of the flower business, it’s very specific, I know it firsthand, because my friends rented certain premises from me, and now they even rent them, and they run this flower business. As they said, you can invest as much money as you want, be, as they say, extremely talkative and agile, but you won’t succeed if you only have average clients who, you know, go there to buy some flowers for your wife, for March 8 or for her birthday – this business won’t take off at all. You must have clients who pay you on a non-cash account and order bouquets of 100 roses and so on. That is, this is the Cabinet of Ministers, this is some government organization, deputies. If you have a way to do this, then this business will flourish,” Dorotich said.
According to him, even before the full-scale invasion, creating a working profitable business in this area was a problem. You need to have clients, such serious clients, and that's the only way to make money.
“Of course, if Mr. Sokur has brought in clients, then you can make money (for the boutique - ed.), and make money very quickly,” Dorotich noted.
However, he does not exclude that the stunning success of Sokur's roommate may be related to another very interesting aspect. "But this business can also be used to legalize certain funds. You can order a bouquet, pay for it and order it, but not pick up the bouquet. If it is a simplified form, a budget organization has run through it, they don't care about VAT. The losses will be 5-6%. They transferred it to cash and that's it," Dorotich noted.
However, if you look at the situation from this angle, the question arises: who should check the cleanliness of the operations of the sole proprietorship of the cohabitant of one of the country's main tax officials? The tax office?
Lawyer Oleksiy Baganets said that of course Sokur can choose who he lives with and marries. However, in his declaration he is obliged to indicate the data about the person with whom he lives together.
"When filling out the declaration, he is obliged to indicate what income his common-law wife had and has. Why? Because this is running a joint household. Of course, it implies that he must show the income of his common-law wife. This is unambiguous," the lawyer emphasized.
According to him, the NACP should carefully study this situation, including for the presence of a conflict of interest. After all, during the inspection, questions may arise about the appropriateness of Sokur's continued stay in office.
Criminal proceedings for official misconduct are being investigated against Sokur. This case was opened by the State Bureau of Investigation on November 4, 2022 under Part 3 of Article 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, on the fact of abuse of official authority by Sokur, who on October 26, 2022 signed an order to cancel the license of PJSC “Ukrtatnafta” for the production of fuel. According to the investigation, such actions of the official caused serious consequences for the company, as well as for the state in the form of the impossibility of fulfilling the mobilization tasks of the Ministry of Defense for the production and supply of petroleum products for the needs of defense and the defense capability of the state. The State Bureau of Investigation reported that this criminal case is still under investigation.
