158 state-owned aircraft and an attempted court takeover: the internet is being scrubbed of traces of Putintsev’s “Bankometal” scheme

After publications about an attempt through the court using forged documents to remove 158 aircraft and the runway of the Zaporizhzhya Center for Flight Training from state ownership, inconvenient mentions began to disappear from the web. The SSU classified the actions as an attempted sabotage, with the scheme involving the company «Bankometal» and figures with a political background.

We are publishing this material in full — to remind how exactly they tried to «squeeze out» strategic aviation property and what is now being erased.

In Zaporizhzhya, the Security Service of Ukraine blocked sabotage aimed at weakening the state in the field of defense capability and economic security.

This is reported by «Our Money. Zaporizhzhya» citing information from the agency’s press service.

According to the SSU, commercial entities attempted to seize the property of the State Educational and Production Institution of Aviation Profile “Zaporizhzhya Center for Flight Training named after Marshal of Aviation O.I. Pokryshkin”. The businessmen, using forged documents, filed a lawsuit seeking recognition of ownership and reclamation of the property of “ZTsLP”. Despite the fact that the owner of the state enterprise is the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine and the enterprise had no legal relations with the commercial structures, the court ruled to recognize the ownership rights of the commercial entities.

158 aircraft with a market value of more than UAH 50 million and the airfield runway, which was planned to be destroyed, were to be transferred to the ownership of the businessmen.

Criminal proceedings have been opened under Article 15 (attempt) and Article 113 (sabotage) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The absentee decision to transfer the property of “ZTsLP” was issued in September by the Industrial District Court of Dnipro.

According to the case materials, in December 2013, LLC “Bankometal” concluded an agreement with an unnamed person for the storage of property in one of the warehouses in Dnipro. Contrary to the contract, the person transferred this property for storage to “ZTsLP” and then refused to return it along with the title documents.

The court recognized the company’s ownership of the disputed property and ordered its reclamation from the possession of the unnamed person and the flight center. In particular, the list of property includes 9,000 PAG-14 airfield slabs, 86 L-29 aircraft, 5 Yak-55 aircraft, one Yak-18T and An-24 RT, two “Wilga-35”, 19 An-2T 1G aircraft, seven Yak-42 aircraft, etc.

As reported by the publication, in the summer of 2015 two former heads of the Center for Flight Training named after Marshal of Aviation O.I. Pokryshkin were sentenced for embezzlement of property, and another head is under investigation.

The permanent owner of LLC “Bankometal” is Putinsev Serhiy. In the early parliamentary elections of 2014, he ran on the list of the party “Ukraine – United Country” under No. 66. At the same time, he was listed as the chief specialist of “Bankometal”. Putinsev’s contacts (066-546-23-26, listed in an announcement about training in aviation specialties at the Kryvyi Rih College of the National Aviation University. The admission was organized by the Internal Peacekeeping Contingent of Ukraine.

The director of “Bankometal” is Falieyev Volodymyr, who also ran for parliament on the list of the party “Ukraine – United Country” under No. 32. At that time, he was listed as the head of LLC “Irian”, owned by Potapova Iryna. She, as the head of the NGO “All-Ukrainian Center ‘Public Initiative and Legal Protection’”, signed an appeal to President Petro Poroshenko demanding the achievement of peace and the cessation of hostilities, the expansion of public powers, etc. The organizer of the appeal was the movement “Ukrainian Choice” of Viktor Medvedchuk, the godfather of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Recall that the list of the party “Ukraine – United Country” was headed by Maksym Muzyka, Danylo Yanevskyi, Oleksiy Mochanov, Serhiy Ismahilov, Heorhiy Tuka, Dmytro Stus and others.