Anti-corruption activists and the Office of the President have classified the transcripts of Mindich’s conversations with Umerov – Dubinsky
MP Oleksandr Dubinsky claimed that there is a "backroom deal" between anti-corruption agencies (NABU/SAPO) and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle, which is allegedly why new transcripts of conversations between Timur Mindich and Rustem Umerov are not being made public.
According to the MP, one such transcript of conversations between Mindich and Umerov—which NABU and SAP are not publishing due to an agreement with Zelenskyy—mentions individuals named “Igor” and “Ira” who receive salaries of $50,000 and $30,000 per month in cash. Umerov allegedly pays them using funds laundered through the Ministry of Defense. Dubinsky claims that these individuals are Igor Khmelov, the owner of Fire Point, and Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Vereshchuk.
According to the MP’s assumption, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos and SAPO Head Oleksandr Klymenko are forced to hold back the investigation into the “Mindichgate” case so as not to touch the state’s top leadership and its inner circle, specifically Andriy Yermak and Serhiy Shefir. Dubinsky links this loyalty to the SBU’s possession of compromising material on the heads of the anti-corruption agencies themselves. According to his account, OPZZh MP Fedir Khrystenko, “whom the first deputy head of the SBU brought back from Dubai in a bag, like a dog,” gave testimony to the SBU against NABU agents Magomedrasulov and Gusarov, and through them—against the bureau’s leadership.
“That’s why a deal was struck between NABU/SAPO and Zelenskyy-Yermak. The Office is ‘holding onto’ Khristenko’s testimony, while Kryvonis and Klymenko aren’t moving beyond ‘Mindichgate.’ Specifically, they aren’t touching Shefir, Yermak, Zelenskyy, or his mackerel. At the same time, Tatarov is mediating the agreement—which is why Zelenskyy did not allow Budanov to dismiss him from the Presidential Office,” Dubinsky writes.
Timur Mindich, a businessman implicated in the NABU case regarding corruption in the energy sector, along with his partner Ihor Khmelov and Ihor Myronyuk—whom NABU identifies as one of the shadow managers behind embezzlement at “Energoatom”—have residential, property, and financial ties in Slovakia. According to the Slovak Commercial Register, Timur Mindich has long been doing business in Slovakia, and his activities are additionally linked to Igor Khmelov—a Ukrainian entrepreneur whose name appears in the case involving the drone manufacturer Fire Point. In 2017, Mindich joined Blackrock Consulting s.r.o. as a partner; the company had been founded a year earlier by three Russian citizens. On the same day, the firm changed its name to TIM&TIM.; Mindich acquired the company together with his partner, Ukrainian Igor Khmelov, who also registered as an entrepreneur in Slovakia in the same month, the same year, and at the same address as Mindich.
