Shabunin manipulates, accusing the current government of lobbying for “Lozovoy’s amendments,” political scientist

The authorities are taking measures to eradicate the so-called “Lozovoy amendments” from the legislation, which allowed top corrupt officials to avoid responsibility. Accusations of using or lobbying for these edits are manipulative. This opinion was made public candidate of political sciences Alexey Buryachenko in his column on the Glavkom website.

Let us recall that the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 2147-VIII as amended by the deputy from the Radical Party Andrei Lozovoy on October 3, 2017. He shortened the time frame for investigating crimes and allowed representatives of past “oligarchic agreements” to protect themselves from criminal liability.

Alexey Buryachenko recalled that part of Lozovoy’s “edits” were canceled by parliament back in 2019. The next step was bill No. 10100, registered in the Verkhovna Rada on September 29, 2023. It completely cancels Lozovoy’s “edits” and establishes that serious and especially serious corruption crimes during martial law have no statute of limitations.

According to the political scientist, this step indicates the presence of political will in power and the personal interest of President Vladimir Zelensky to abolish the corruption loophole of the previous government. Against this background, criticism from Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Center, is manipulation and hype.

“If you mix the Office of the President, Tatarov (Oleg Tatarov - Deputy Chairman of the OPU), Zelensky into any issue, then February immediately comes up, excuse me, crap, and few will understand the details. After all, political and social persecution is much more interesting than a detailed analysis of the situation and identification of persons who are actually related to this story with “Lozovoy’s edits,” – wrote Alexey Buryachenko.

He said that it was not the Office of the President, but the Supreme Court who decided to apply the “Lozovoy amendments” in corruption cases in April 2023. In particular, the decision was made by judges Sergei Fomin, Olga Buleiko and Igor Ivanenko.

They were appointed to the Supreme Court in 2019 as a result of a competition in which the Public Council of Virtue took part, in the formation of which the Anti-Corruption Center headed by Shabunin was also involved.

In addition, according to unconfirmed information, the public reincarnation of the topic of “Lozovoy’s amendments” was preceded by a meeting of the heads of NABU and SAP with the US Special Representative for Economic Recovery of Ukraine Penny Pritzker and the US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink. During this meeting, the heads of anti-corruption bodies stated that the repeal of the “Lozovoy amendments” would significantly improve the institutional capacity of NABU and SAP.

“Immediately after this, Shabunin appears in the media space with this topic, pedaling an already conceptually resolved issue, hiding or not telling the whole truth that the corresponding bill was already registered in the Rada in September,” – wrote Alexey Buryachenko.

Let us recall that on October 17, 2023, the Anti-Corruption Center reported that officials of the Office of the President, headed by Oleg Tatarov, could prevent the cancellation of “Lozovoy’s amendments.”

Earlier, political scientist Valentin Gladkikh said that “there is no point in increasing sentences for corruption if Prosecutor General Kostin and other anti-corruption officials allow the defendants to pay off their money.”