Ukrainian professor leaked government plans to Yanukovych-era minister in 2020 – report

Former Ukrainian Education Minister and suspected traitor Dmytro Tabachnyk remained in contact with some Ukrainian officials after 2014, according to an investigation by Toronto Television published on Dec. 18.

Journalists obtained a dump of Tabachnyk's Telegram chats from law enforcement sources, including over 700 messages with his former deputy Yevhen Sulima. They communicated on Telegram from 2019 to at least April 2022 and met in person several times, including a meeting in Moscow in July 2021.

Sulima held a professor role at Moscow State University as of 2016 and received Russian citizenship. He then returned to Ukraine and joined the Scientific Advisory Council of the State Tax Service in 2020.

Sulima was a professor at the Department of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of the State Fiscal Service in Irpin and worked at the Department of Psychology and Social-Humanitarian Disciplines at the Kyiv Institute of Water Transport but was dismissed from both positions after public protests in 2023.

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In June 2020, Sulima informed Tabachnyk about the potential appointment of a new education minister. Tabachnyk reportedly welcomed the possible appointment of Serhiy Shkarlet, but by 2021, he referred to Shkarlet and another official Yevhen Bazhenkov as “system  f….s.”

Investigators also discovered that Sulima provided Tabachnyk with the phone numbers of deans of Zaporizhzhia universities, which he later passed to FSB officer Oleg Kozlov. Sulima also congratulated Tabachnyk after the EU lifted personal sanctions against him.

Journalists could not reach Sulima for a comment.

Tabachnyk also corresponded with Olha Kravchenko, a former Head of the Legal Department in the Ministry of Education when Tabachnyk served as the minister.

Kravchenko was transferred to the corresponding position in the Infrastructure Ministry in 2023.

Prior to that, Kravchenko was the Head of legal department in the Administration of President Petro Poroshenko and worked in the Prosecutor General's Office under Ruslan Ryaboshapka and Iryna Venediktova.

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According to the journalists, Tabachnyk asked Sulima to contact Kravchenko when she applied for a position in the Economy Ministry, to discuss future cooperation with her. Kravchenko and Tabachnyk also met during a vacation in the UAE in 2021.

In February 2022, Tabachnyk informed Kravchenko about an attempted raider takeover of the Commission on State Language Affairs, and Kravchenko replied “they're not after me yet, there's still some time.”

When asked by journalists, Kravchenko said she does not remember the context of this message. According to her, she and Tabachnyk only exchanged birthday greetings, and they have not communicated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Kravchenko also stated that she does not remember vacationing with Tabachnyk in Dubai.

Journalists found correspondence between Tabachnyk and Yuriy Boyko, an MP and former leader of the banned Opposition Platform — For Life party, former deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada from the banned Communist Party Ihor Kaletnik, former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, and MP Nestor Shufrych.

Suspected of state treason, former MP Oleg Tsaryov asked Tabachnyk to “facilitate” that FSB officers “not dig too deep,” and Tabachnyk praised Tsarev’s interview with a propaganda resource.

The former minister also communicated with Volodymyr Saldo, Russia’s occupation administration in Kherson Oblast, sending him a “provisional scheme for organizing military-civil administrations” in occupied Ukrainian territories and describing a scheme to profit from fuel market.

Tabachnyk also has correspondence with Russian military units helping him steal Ukrainian agricultural equipment in occupied territories, and Tabachnyk assisted them in “solving problems" in return.

He was charged with high treason in Nov. 2022.

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Tabachnyk organized and coordinated the activities of Saldo and Yevhen Balytsky (Moscow-appointed “administrator” of Zaporizhzhya Oblast) “in terms of health care, education, and preparation for [fake] 'referendums',” according to the investigation.

SBU seized Tabachnyk's assets worth over $2 million in Jan. 2023.

Tabachnyk was put on wanted list by SBU in 2015.  According to law enforcement, he was hiding from the investigation in occupied Crimea.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine