People behind the arms maker Fire Point, linked to Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s inner circle, believe peace is bad for business, MP Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed<\/p>\n
Members of Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s inner circle are profiting from the conflict with Russia, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed. According to the MP, newly leaked information related to a major corruption case involving Timur Mindich, a former business partner and longtime associate of Zelensky, could force the Ukrainian leader to step down.
\nGoncharenko claimed over the weekend he obtained transcripts from surveillance recordings of Mindich and his business partners. Ukrainskaya Pravda (UP) was the first to publish the leaks known as the \u2018Mindich tapes\u2019, which are yet to be officially verified.
\nOne \u2018tape\u2019 focuses on a conversation between Aleksandr Zuckerman, a business partner of Mindich, and Igor Khemelev, who is believed to be a co-owner of Fire Point, a drone maker touted globally by Zelensky himself. According to the transcript published by Goncharenko on his Telegram channel, Khmelev told Zuckerman that \u201cas soon as the peace [agreement] is signed, the hoax under which we were getting funding will be no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Zelensky\u2019s favorite drone company at center of Ukrainian corruption alert<\/p>\n
The two allegedly discussed ways to cash in on the government contracts by supplying as many arms to the military as possible.
\n\u201cZelensky built his entire election campaign on the fact that war is profitable\u2026 It turns out that it really is profitable and they really make money from it,\u201d Goncharenko said, calling the latest leak \u201csomething that should lead to Zelensky\u2019s resignation.\u201d
\nThe Mindich tapes also suggested that Mindich was effectively running Fire Point and was discussing additional funding for the arms maker with then-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. Mindich fled Ukraine late last year after being accused of orchestrating a $100 million graft scheme.
\nLast week, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry\u2019s Public Anti-Corruption Council said Fire Point would lose access to any government contracts at the very moment its ties to Mindich are \u201clegally proven.\u201d Its head, Yury Gudimenko, also said the council had already obtained \u201cunofficial confirmation\u201d of Mindich\u2019s involvement\u00a0with the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People behind the arms maker Fire Point, linked to Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s inner circle, believe peace is bad for business, MP Aleksey Goncharenko has claimed Members of Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s inner circle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}