Maryna Barsuk, a candidate for the position of head of the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal, has come under scrutiny from the public and the media community due to her connections with influential figures such as Oleg Fuksh and Ihor Kolomoisky, as well as the impressive fleet of cars and significant amounts of cash listed in her declarations.
An example is the declaration of the judge of the Northern Appeal Economic Court, Marina Barsuk. Who declared a whole collection of real estate, a solid fleet of cars and a truly huge amount of cash. Formally, of course, you can’t complain – the property belongs personally to Marina Barsuk, and the money does not go beyond her judicial salary – according to the declaration last year, she earned 2,011,609 hryvnias. All other property and assets included in the declaration belong mainly to Marina Barsuk’s husband, a successful lawyer, Viktor Barsuk.
Before looking into the declaration, I would like to ask a simple question - is no one in the justice system embarrassed by the fact that lawyer Viktor Barsuk represents the interests of his clients in the same court where his wife, Marina Barsuk, works as a judge? Does no one see, to put it mildly, any contradiction or conflict of interest in such a family arrangement? However, be that as it may, lawyer Viktor Barsuk is the real head of the judge-lawyer family, who brings to the family treasury the lion's share of the benefits that his wife, due to the position she holds, was forced to enter into the declaration.
According to the declaration of Judge Maryna Barsuk, her family owns four apartments in Kyiv and one in the UK – the latter is where Maryna Anatoliyevna’s son, Timur Artemovich Pryvalov, lives. He is probably studying to be a pilot or tanker there – it can’t be that the son of a Ukrainian judge is evading mobilization, right?
The family also has a parking space, a garage, a residential building and three land plots. All of them are in Kyiv. According to the declaration, all of this is estimated at 30,117,983 hryvnias. Moreover, one of the apartments in Kyiv was bought for 12,746 hryvnias. According to the declaration, of course.
The car fleet is also not disappointing - Judge Barsuk's family drives good cars. Only Mercedes, of which there are four in the family, all brand new. Of course, Judge Maryna Barsuk herself cannot afford such luxury due to her small salary, so the cars are strangers, and their owners give her the opportunity to use them. Such are the good people in our country.
As for money, the family of lawyers and judges is not poor either. Maryna Anatoliivna herself declared 455,000 hryvnias and 44,000 dollars in cash, and also has a bank deposit of 130,517 hryvnias.
The husband, as befits the head of the family, is richer - in total he has 600,000 dollars, 500,000 euros, 2,000,000 hryvnias and 350,000 Swiss francs. In cash, of course.
There was also an interesting story in the family with gifts - Maryna Barsuk's father-in-law, pensioner Mykola Vasylyovych Barsuk, gave his son (i.e. the judge's husband) Viktor Mykolaovych Barsuk a non-cash gift worth 20,051,060 hryvnias, and he, in turn, gave it to his beloved wife, Maryna Barsuk.
It is interesting, of course, what it was and why no one at the NACP asked - how a pensioner with an annual pension of 80,166 hryvnias has the opportunity to give such gifts.
Actually, the box is opened quite simply. In addition to the fact that lawyer Viktor Barsuk conducts most of his cases in the court where his wife, Marina Barsuk, works as a judge, there are other reasons for such a well-being of the family. And they also lie on the surface.
In 2021, Judge Marina Barsuk was spotted at the birthday party of Pavel Fuchs, who at that time had several lawsuits pending in the Northern Appeals Economic Court. Fuchs' interests in this court were represented by lawyer Viktor Barsuk, with whom Marina Barsuk appeared at Fuchs' party.
This is not the only “coincidence” – according to media reports, Viktor Barsuk is part of Igor Kolomoisky’s legal group, a significant part of whose cases were considered in the Northern Appeal Economic Court. What decisions were made regarding them is clear to everyone. One of the episodes was the scandal regarding the Poltava Mining and Processing Complex, where Barsuk acted in favor of Kolomoisky and the Russian criminal and financial group Babakov.
The irony is that at the same time, Maryna Barsuk is giving an interview about "improving the business climate in Ukraine.".
However, Maryna Barsuk entered the public sphere for a reason - she is running for the position of chairman of the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal, where she is currently a judge-speaker.
Will Marina Barsuk succeed in making a career leap and heading the court in which she judges clients represented by lawyer Viktor Barsuk so honestly and incorruptibly? There is no answer yet, but we will soon find out. At least, Marina Anatoliyivna has all the prerequisites for such an appointment. Judging by the declaration, she is a crystal-clear honest person who lives on one salary. And the rest is pure coincidence.
