KIEV, Mar 22 (AFP): Ukrainian police on Friday detained the powerful head of the Naftogaz state oil and gas firm on suspicion of embezzling at least $4 billion (2.9 billion euros) during the rule of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement published on his Facebook account that Naftogaz chief Yevgen Bakulin was suspected of heading a "criminal group" whose members include other senior current and former Ukrainian government members.
Naftogaz is Ukraine's primary importer of natural gas from Russia and currently owes about $1.9 billion (1.4 billion euros) to Moscow's state-run energy giant Gazprom.
The debt has seen Gazprom threaten to cut Ukraine off from natural gas shipments in a repeat of halts to supplies that also impacted Russia's western European clients in 2006 and 2009.
Naftogaz has come under heavy scrutiny from the new Western-backed government that toppled Yanukovych on February 22 at the end of the three months of deadly protests whose primary aim was to rid the ex-Soviet nation of corruption and to sever its links with the Kremlin.
Avakov's statement was issued moments after Ukrainian media reported that prosecutors and police had searched the apartment of Ukraine's former energy minister Eduard Stavytsky.
The Ukrainska Pravda news site said Stavytsky was suspected of money laundering and abuse of power.
The site quoted undisclosed sources as saying that Stavytsky had fled to Italy shortly after Yanukovych left Kiev for Russia at the end of last month.
Ukraine detains head of state energy firm
FE Team | Published: March 23, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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