Ukraine’s prosecutor general spent over 100 days on foreign business trips last year
Pravda Ukraine
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin spent 103 days on foreign business trips, with half of them in the United States, where his wife lives.
Source: Ukrainska Pravda, citing a source in the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) familiar with the matter; PGO response to lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko’s request; Kostin’s 2023 declaration
Quote from the source: “Prosecutor General Andrii E. Kostin undertook foreign business trips totaling 103 days in 2023 (including days of departure and arrival, accounting for almost 30% of calendar days in a year).
Almost half of these trips took place in the United States, Washington, where his wife officially resides, as stated in the declaration submitted to the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP).”
Details: Oleksii Honcharenko, a lawmaker from the European Solidarity faction, made a post on his Telegram channel featuring the PGO’s response to his request.
It states that Kostin was on foreign business trips 13 times in 2023 and four times from 1 January to 6 March 2024. At the same time, the PGO has not indicated the duration of Kostin’s stay abroad.
Furthermore, PGO employees on international business trips received reimbursements of UAH 3,781,368 (roughly US$97,300) from the budget in 2023 and UAH 471,139 (US$12,100) in 2024. At the same time, 57% of business trips were fully funded by the organisers, 33% were partially funded by the organisers, and only 10% were financed by the state budget.
Kostin’s 2023 declaration states that his wife, Olha Kostina, works and rents an apartment in the United States. In particular, the company owned by the Prosecutor General’s wife is registered in Washington, DC. However, the declaration does not indicate the rental cost of her flat in the United States.
In response to Honcharenko’s request, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported that in 2023-2024, Kostin’s visits abroad “contributed to the signing of crucial agreements, the investigation of war crimes committed against Ukraine and the provision of assistance to our country in this process”.
In particular, the PGO noted that the following were the results of Kostin’s work:
- Arrest orders from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, for deportation of Ukrainian children, and for two Russian top commanders (a general and an admiral) for attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure.
- Signing the agreement and opening the office of the ICC in Kyiv, facilitating their investigations.
- Opening the International Centre for Prosecution for the Crime of Aggression and preparing a case for the future tribunal.
- Promoting the creation of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression at the international level.
- Confiscation of assets of Russian oligarchs in the US – US$5.4 million, which were then used for the rehabilitation of Ukrainian veterans. A similar process is underway in Canada.
- Serving four pro-Russian militants from the Ministry of Justice of the US with notices of suspicion.
- Serving three pro-Russian militants from Lithuania with notices of suspicion in the case of the murder of a civilian in the city of Mariupol. The result of the work of the investigative group was based on Eurojust.
- Creating a Consultation Group for International Crimes composed of experts from the US, EU and the UK and aimed at helping Ukraine investigate war crimes in its own territory.
- Facilitating the aid of a number of countries in the investigation of Russia’s war crimes: creating a mission of experts who help document the crimes, supply of the equipment for this documentation – DNA laboratories from France and drones for 3D scanning the crime scenes from the US…
- Providing evidence at the hearing of the US Helsinki Commission on war crimes against children, on the confiscation of Russian assets, on the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children and illegally detained civilians, and on holding Russia accountable for war crimes (Nurnberg). The result of this communication was adding a bill named after a teenager shot by the Russians to Congress. This bill provides for imposing sanctions to fight the mass deportation of Ukrainian children.
Background: On 4 April, it was revealed that the President’s Office of Ukraine was discussing the possible dismissal of Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin.
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