Ten candidates are vying for ARMA leadership. What is known about each

The Ukrainian government has set an absolute record in the duration of competitive selection for the head of a state body. The candidate for the head of the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes (or Asset Recovery and Management Agency, ARMA) is selected for three and a half years.

ARMA has been without a leader since 27 December 2019, when Anton Yanchuk was prematurely dismissed on corruption charges. The selection committee is now in the final stretch and is preparing to conduct interviews with ten candidates. Mind analysed the publicly available information about each of them.

Artem Brintsov

He has never worked in central executive bodies. He pursued his entire career in the judiciary. For the last four years, he has been the Head of the Legal Support Department of the High Anti-Corruption Court. Prior to this, he worked for seven years as a specialist and assistant judge at the Supreme Court.

According to the laws of Ukraine "On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges" and "On the High Anti-Corruption Court", the administrative office is to organise the operation of the HACC. That is, the experience Brintsov gained in the judiciary (including in a leadership position) is purely auxiliary in nature. And nothing in his biography suggests that his level of professional expertise would be sufficient for the effective and continuous operation of ARMA.

Brintsov has no experience in organising work in the central executive bodies with personnel selection, accounting, internal control, public procurement, interaction with other executive bodies. He has never engaged in the formation and implementation of public policy by a state body.

The candidate’s positive feature is that his name has not appeared in corruption scandals, and journalists do not associate him with any businessman or politician..

Viktor Dubovyk

Olena Duma

She worked as the Deputy Head of the Chernigiv Oblast State Administration until September 2021.

She started her career as a lawyer in various private companies. After gaining six years of experience, she moved into public service. She frequently changed jobs, working as an adviser to the Minister of Environmental Protection, then as a Deputy Director of the Legal Department in the same ministry. Then she moved to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the Social Insurance Fund, the Apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the State Registration Service, with her last entry in the employment record as the Deputy Head of the Chernigiv Oblast State Administration.

In January 2020, Olena Duma was appointed the Director of the Executive Directorate in the Social Insurance Fund of Ukraine. However, in May of the same year, she was dismissed with disgrace "due to established numerous instances of gross violation of labour and compulsory state social insurance legislation, "On Remuneration of Labour", "On Leaves of Absence", "On Personal Data Protection", "On Information" and other laws and regulations." Mrs Duma tried to appeal this decision in court for two years. But she lost the appeal.

In September 2020, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) reported on signs of late submission of a declaration without valid reasons by Olena Duma in the capacity of former director of the Department in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

In April 2019, Olena Duma spoke on behalf of protesters outside presidential wannabe Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign headquarters. Representatives of Zelensky's campaign headquarters then stated that participants were promised 300 UAH for participating in the rally.

Olena Duma was also a party coordinator of the Valentyn Nalyvaichenko Socio-Political Movement 'Justice'. However, she hid information about her work in the aforementioned party in her autobiography.

While working in the party in 2018, Duma worked as the director of the Department of State Property Management and Public Relations in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine. By doing so, she violated the requirements of the Laws of Ukraine "On Civil Service" regarding political impartiality (Paragraph 8, Part 1, Clause 4; Clause 10), "On Prevention of Corruption" regarding political impartiality (Clause 40) and neutrality (Clause 41).

Since 2017, Duma has been the Deputy Head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine Trade Union Offensive, the Head of the All-Ukrainian Trade Union Native Land and a member of the boards of other national trade unions.

She also worked in various public service positions from 2008 to 2021. She actively participated in events staged by the aforementioned organisations from 2017 to 2021, and there are numerous photos and videos in the media confirming Olena Duma's participation in public events, rallies, and activities of these organisations during working days.

How she managed to combine leading and participating in the NGO activities with public service, she may explain to the selection committee herself.

Dmytro Zhoravovych

Acting Head of ARMA, who has already managed to get involved in numerous corruption scandals during his tenure.

He worked as a lawyer for 16 years. Concurrently, from 2012, he created a legal holding of four companies –  Real-Pravo LLC, Pravo-Resurs LLC, Yurstatus LLC, Yurprominvest LLC, all of which among other things, have been involved in "patent trolling" of Latvian pharmaceuticals for many years.

Prior to his appointment at ARMA, from 2003 to 2019, Dmytro Zhoravovych was the director of several companies. At the time, he served the legal and property interests of the russian owners of the Zdorovya (‘Health’) pharmaceutical group of companies, the largest in Ukraine, and its CEO Oleksandr Dorovsky, and led his charitable foundation, and was his authorised representative during elections.

Zhoravovych also headed the religious community of the Church of the Myrrhophores under the moscow Patriarchate. The church was built with the funds of russian politician Aleksandr Shishkin.

In 2019, he went into public service, taking over the North-Eastern Interregional Territorial Administration of ARMA. And since August 2021, he has been acting head of ARMA.

According to the Audit Chamber, Zhoravovich received a record high reward in November – December 2021 – 425,600 UAH. Salary supplements of more than 300% during a full-scale war were discussed at a meeting of the parliamentary Anti-Corruption Committee. The issue of an inflated staff of the patronage service and employment of close friends in ARMA was also raised.

During a meeting of the Provisional Committee, the Adhoc Inquest Committee of the Verkhovna Rada criticised Zhoravovych for non-competitive and ineffective realisation of 42,000 tonnes of russian ammonia and 2,200 tonnes of belarusian potassium.

Zhoravovych is featured in numerous journalistic investigations – in particular,  due to the lack of results during the transfer of russian assets to ARMA management and unwillingness to dismiss his subordinate Yegor Sigariov, who was suspected by NABU of corruption. Zhoravovich is also criticised for the fact that he unilaterally left for Lviv on the first day of the war instead of carrying out his official duties at his workplace in Kyiv.

Also, Zhoravovich, abusing his official powers and acting in a conflict of interest, is trying to hold his subordinate Stanislav Seriogin accountable, who is his competitor in the selection of a candidate for the head of ARMA as well..

Volodymyr Pavlenko

He worked as a lawyer for private companies for 11 years. In October 2019, he became an advisor to the Head of ARMA, and in January 2020 – Deputy Head of ARMA.

Prior to his appointment as Deputy Head of ARMA, Pavlenko's experience in management positions amounted to just two years and eight months. However, according to Part 1, Clause 7 of the ARMA Law, candidates for deputy positions must have work experience in management positions for at least three years.

A year and a half after Pavlenko's appointment as Deputy Head of ARMA, the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office  served him with charges of a corruption crime –  the appropriation of $398,000, which had been seized and transferred to the ARMA’s management. In September of the same year, Pavlenko was suspended from his position.

The investigation was completed in July 2022. The ruling of the Supreme Court was to reinstate the person involved in the case, because the acting Head of ARMA, Dmytro Zhoravovich, had dismissed him, violating the procedure. But Pavlenko has not yet returned to work.

In April 2020, content from Volodymyr Pavlenko's phone was published in the media. Then the society learned about corruption schemes, ties with russian businessmen, ordering criminal proceedings against Glib Kanevsky, the Head of the Public Council of ARMA, Oleksandr Lemenov, the Chairman of the Board of the StateWatch NGO, and Denys Selin, the Chairman of the Board of the Public Control Platform NGO.

Andriy Potiomkin

He spent his first five years building a lawyer’s career in the private sector, the next eight ones, working as an assistant to a judge of the Constitutional Court and a chief specialist in the High Commercial Court. From 2015 to 2017, he held executive positions in the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. From 2017 to 2020, he headed the Legal Department of ARMA. He has never been a member of any party and has not engaged in political activity.

Potiomkin was fired due to a conflict with his immediate supervisor – Anton Yanchuk, who was then heading ARMA.

In 2019, Potemkin appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office, SAPO, SBI, NABU, and the National Police with statements about illegal actions committed by Yanchuk and other officials. Thus, five criminal proceedings were initiated on Yanchuk's actions and decisions. After which, the Cabinet of Ministers dismissed Yanchuk. And his deputy Vitaliy Sygidin (then the acting Head of ARMA, now suspected of a corruption crime) dismissed Potiomkin in January 2020. The latter challenged this decision in court, but the acting Head of ARMA, Dmytro Zhoravovych, has not yet implemented it.

It is known from public sources that Potiomkin closely cooperates with NABU, SBU, and DBR in the role of a whistleblower and witness, providing testimony about corruption crimes in ARMA. He provided information regarding the theft of $400,000 from ARMA accounts, the case of property embezzlement from the Mezhygirya Residence, in particular.

Sergiy Rokun

Senior detective, Head of the First Detectives Subdivision, Second Detectives Division, Main Detectives Department of NABU.

Rokun's career at NABU developed rapidly. He started from the position of legal advisor in the Department for working with special assets of the Legal Department of NABU in January 2016. But he didn't stay there long – and after just two months, he took up the position of a NABU detective.

However, in accordance with the requirements established in NABU for the professional competence level, a detective must necessarily have at least three years of experience related to intelligence gathering in the field of criminal investigation and surveillance operations, intelligence, or counterintelligence activities. Rokun does not have such experience, if we trust the data from his service record.

Before joining NABU, Rokun worked for one and a half years as a state inspector in the Legal Department of the State Tax Service in the city of Rivne, and another half a year as a chief state inspector in the Department of Legal Support for Inspections, Legal Work Directorate of the State Fiscal Service in the Rivne Oblast.

At the time he started working as a NABU detective, his total work experience was 2 years and 1 month. At the same time, he did not work a single day in operational activities.

Rokun was appointed a senior detective and deputy head of the department less than two years after he worked as a detective. Although, according to the requirements established in NABU for the professional competence level, a senior detective must necessarily have work experience related to criminal investigation and surveillance operations and/or pre-trial investigation of at least three years, including at least one year in executive positions.

In January 2021, Sergiy Rokun became the acting Head, and in December 2021 – the Head of the Detectives Subdivision. This became possible due to his appointment to previous positions under special conditions.

Unlike his colleagues, Sergiy Rokun is big news. The disapproval by the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine concerning the intentions to spy on synagogue parishioners and conducting surveillance at the European Court, due to which a service investigation was started in the relevant body of the Council of Europe, became the most high-profile media scandals in Rokun's rapid career ascent.

Oleksandr Rudenko

Lawyer, head of the RO LEX law firm. From 1999, he worked in the private sector, from 2012 he began practice of law, and in 2017 he registered as a sole proprietor. There is no mention of work in state bodies in his work book. Despite this, Rudenko is regularly involved in competitions for top positions in law enforcement agencies.

In 2021, Oleksandr Rudenko took part in the competition for the position of the director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), ranking last after delivering his presentation. In 2022, he applied for the first competitive selection of a candidate for the position of ARMA head.

In February 2023, Oleksandr Rudenko failed to pass the integrity interview during the competition to fill the vacancy of the NABU director. Numerous questions arose about him confirming the legality of the declared savings of $70,000 and 30,000 euros in cash, hiding contractual relationships in providing legal assistance to the political parties Third Force and Ukrainians Together from 2018 to 2020, a possible conflict of interest when receiving a multimillion-dollar loan in the Portal Bank, where Rudenko worked as a member of the supervisory board, in particular. 

Stanislav Seriogin

Head of the Central-Western Interregional Territorial Administration of ARMA.

He led the legal department in a private company, concurrently pursuing a legal career at the State Enterprise Ukrainian Special Systems, for four years. From July 2019, he began working in ARMA as the Head of the Central-Western Interregional Territorial Administration.

His name does not appear in corruption scandals, and he is not associated with any businessman or politician. He is not a member of any political party. On social media, Seriogin is only criticised for possibly supporting his wife's culinary business. It is said that he was distributing cakes made by his wife to local cafes during working hours.

There are also publications about his brother, Oleksandr Seriogin (he also participated in the competition for the position of Head of ARMA, but did not score enough points in the tests). In the past, he was a member of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP), a lawyer for the business centre Navigator, to which ARMA handed over the seized business centre Gulliver, associated with the structures of Oleksandr Klymenko – a Yanukovych-era minister.

Seryogin's advantage is that he has been working as a top official in ARMA for over three years and knows the legislation and all the practical aspects of this body's activities.

The acting head of ARMA, Dmytro Zhoravovich, is trying to exclude Seryogin from the competition, bringing him to disciplinary responsibility. The head of the board of the StateWatch NGO, Oleksandr Lemenov, has filed a complaint with the NACP for this reason.

Konstiantyn Tkachenko

A lawyer who has worked for 15 years as a solicitor in a private company. In 2012, he founded a law firm, which he managed until February 2021 – when he took up the post of Director of the Corporate Governance Department at the State Property Fund of Ukraine. He worked in the SPF until October 2022. Since then, he has been working as a lawyer. He is non-partisan and has never been involved in political or public activities.

Alongside the competition in ARMA, Tkachenko is a candidate for membership in the High Judicial Qualifications Commission of Ukraine. After a successful interview in March 2023, the competition commission included Tkachenko in the list of candidates recommended for election as members of the HJQC. Now, from 32 candidates, the High Council of Justice has to select and approve 16. One of the members of the HCJ, Oksana Blazhivska, is his relative – the sister of his brother's wife.

The candidate's brother, Sergiy Tkachenko, headed the legal department of the Industrial Group consortium since 2011, and Sergiy Taruta’s Industrial Union of Donbass corporation since 2012. The co-owners of IUD are Sergiy Taruta and Oleg Mkrtchan, as well as russian shareholders. ARMA manages billion-dollar russian assets and is looking for assets of sanctioned individuals. This raises concerns about the direct proximity of Kostiantyn Tkachenko's brother to russian business.