The President of Ukraine has not been and is not named in the pretrial investigation of the “Midas” case. NABU Director Semen Kryvonos said this at a briefing.
Investigators are checking claims about who owns which property. R-1—one of the cottages—is Residence One.
National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov has witness status in the “Midas” case. Note that the case has several strands: corruption in the energy sector, alleged corruption in the defense industry, and money laundering.
Kryvonos said he cannot name the weapons manufacturers involved in the case so as not to violate the presumption of innocence.
“I’m talking about the defense track we discussed from the very beginning, when we published the first information about Operation ‘Midas’—it is also being investigated within NABU. And manufacturers, including certain drone manufacturers, are being investigated,” he said.
SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko added that no investigative actions interfered with weapons production processes.
Context
One strand of the “Midas” investigation concerns a group that laundered money by building cottages in Kozyn. According to reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda investigative journalists, three of the four estates were intended for former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, businessman Tymur Mindich, and former head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak. The name of the person for whom the fourth cottage was intended appeared on recordings of conversations as Vova.
On the recordings officially released by NABU, the cottages were labeled R-1, R-2, R-3, and R-4. R-2, according to investigators, is the estate that was intended for Yermak.