Ukrainian President May Kill Cockroach's Fuel Business
- 20.02.2021, 20:59
A serious blow has been dealt to Medvedchuk's Belarusian partners.
The President of Ukraine signed a new package of sanctions. This time, Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko fell under the sanctions. All their assets and property in Ukraine will be blocked. The reason is the SBU investigation under the article "Financing of terrorism," in which the deputy and his wife, by the way, are not even suspects, the Busel telegram channel writes.
Also, the Ukrainian company PrykarpatZapadtrans, which controls a 400-kilometer pipeline that supplies oil products from Russia and Belarus to Ukraine, fell under the sanctions. In the media, she was associated with Medvedchuk, although the Samara-Western Direction oil pipeline since 2019 was 51% owned by the Belarusian oligarch Mikalai Varabei. In reality, everything is run by the Lukashenka family.
The pipeline does not pump crude oil but diesel, gasoline, and other finished products from the Russian Federation's territory. This is also how Belarusian oil products get to Ukraine.
By the way, these oil products are used both for domestic consumption and for re-export to the European Union.
Zapadtrans manages the Ukrainian part of the pipeline - about 400 kilometers. The topic with this asset has been sharply activated the other day. On February 11, the anti-corruption bureau handed the suspicion to the expert, whose conclusion formed the basis of the court verdict, according to which PrikarpatZapadtrans LLC gained control over a part of the pipe. This part was sold to her by the Russian company Transneft.
Interestingly, this is not the first attack on a company that pumps diesel and gasoline to Ukraine. After Zelenskiy came to power, duties were imposed on Russian fuel supplies. What triggered the deficit in the fall of 2019.
At the time, Zelensky said that they respond to the earlier "gasoline" sanctions of Russia in this way. In fact, the story there was even more complicated and also directly related to Belarus. Russia then introduced a "customs maneuver," trying to force Belarus to pay excise taxes to the Russian budget but compensate for its losses at the Ukrainians' expense.
As a result of these maneuvers, the domestic Ukrainian market's deficit and prices began to grow. And now there is a chance to disrupt fuel supplies.
It is also interesting that although Medvedchuk (the main person involved in the sanctions) denies his participation in the fuel business, indirect data confirm the deepest integration with the Belarusian oligarch Varabei. For example, after the ban on flights to/from Ukraine on Kozak/Medvedchuk's planes, Kozak flies to Kyiv on Varabei's plane and to Moscow on his own.
The next two weeks will show how Zelensky's decisions will affect the fuel business not only in Ukraine, but also in Belarus. We are also monitoring the reaction of Russia.