President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the effectiveness of his team members, including the controversial deputy head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, Oleh Tatarov.
During the Ukraine 2024 forum, the president said that he had previously explained the value of this staff member to journalists at a private meeting. Regarding Tatarov, the President said he was surprised by the question from the Presidential Administration, as he had already explained it in an off-the-record interview.
He noted that this was not public information, but he would announce it now.
‘The United States and everyone knows this. Oleh Tatarov, together with Vasyl Malyuk (head of the SBU - Ed.), were killing Chechens in Ukraine in Kyiv while you were not here. Isn't that enough? Expel him to be killed by Russians?’ he said.
In general, the president said that all members of his team are involved in working with international partners, in particular on the supply of modern weapons such as Patriot.
‘Today, my team as President of Ukraine is all those people who defend the state. The Armed Forces, the Chief of Defence, the Minister of Defence, and I believe we are one team, as well as government officials. When we have positive developments towards the European Union, which you unfortunately don't see, but if we have this positive development, and many people wanted it, then we should thank the speaker and his colleagues - many laws have been passed. It is impossible to ignore the fact that Ukraine has done so much during the war. ‘Patriots, F-16s, ATACMS did not appear on their own, the Peace Summit did not appear, and we could have lost the initiative on other diplomatic settlement initiatives. So this is when you say how to assess people. For example, Andriy Yermak is one of the main people who prepared both the peace formula and the peace summit, and when I talk about other people and say that we are one team, all these contacts and achievements were made by each of them,’ the president said.
- Oleh Tatarov worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs under Viktor Yanukovych. In 2021, he became a defendant in a case involving the embezzlement of National Guard funds through a construction corporation's deal to provide the NGU with cheaper housing for the military.
- The main suspect is the former president of Ukrbud Corporation, Maksym Mykytas. Oleh Tatarov, deputy head of the Presidential Office, was suspected of bribery in 2017 when he worked for Ukrbud.
- Tatarov became involved in the case after Mykytas cut a deal with the investigation and accused him of the crime.
- Several times, Tatarov could not be imposed a preventive measure, and on 30 December 2020, the prosecutor of the Prosecutor General's Office withdrew the request for a preventive measure against him from the High Anti-Corruption Court.
- The Office of the President of Ukraine stated after the start of the criminal proceedings that they had suspended Tatarov from his duties for the duration of the investigation, but did not fire him.
- In November, the SBU reported that after the change of the pre-trial investigation body, the case file was not actually transferred from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau to the Security Service of Ukraine. In the spring of this year, SBU investigators twice appealed to the court to extend the pre-trial investigation in this case, but both appeals were rejected by the court.
- In November 2021, it became known that Tatarov had returned to cooperation with law enforcement agencies.