Former head of a Ukrainian state enterprise shot in Kyiv
Former head of the state enterprise Ukrspirt Viktor Pankov was shot dead in a quiet area of Kyiv on the morning of May 30. An unknown person shot him in the back from a car. Pankov received three injuries, which became fatal. The attacker managed to escape.
The police are working out several theories of the murder. One of them is professional activity: in the past few years, Pankov worked as an advisor to the head of Ukrspirt. The Adviser to the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Anton Gerashchenko, said that Pankov often got into scandals related to the sale of illegal alcohol. As early as 2015, Ukrspirt officials said that dozens of criminal cases had been filed against the enterprise, and that they did not rule out that Pankov might be involved in them. Gerashchenko suggests that the murder of Pankov is related to his professional activities.
"At one time, Pankov himself twice served as head of this state company, which constantly got into scandals related to the sale of "’illegal’ alcohol," Gerashchenko said.
In the time of President Yanukovych, Pankov became Deputy Director of Ukrspirt. Market experts say that he was part of a scheme by which money was laundered through this company for the Yanukovych team. After the Revolution of Dignity, Pankov did not just stay in office, but in December 2014 he even got an appointment to act as chairman of Ukrspirt. At that time, his predecessor, Mikhail Labutin, was informed of suspicion of financial fraud in the amount of 200.7 million UAH ($7.63 million USD). Then he hospitalized in one of the Kyiv hospitals, where unknown people in camouflage kidnapped him. Later it became known that Labutin was taken out of the hospital by the fighters of Aidar volunteer battalion allegedly "in connection with information about the upcoming attempt". In January 2015 Labutin was declared wanted by Interpol.
The company Ukrspirt is one of the most mysterious in Ukraine. Journalist Dmitry Furdak in a TSN TV program claimed that industry observers talk about the criminalization of the alcohol market, over which the state actually lost control. Experts say that in the shadow schemes around Ukrspirt, millions of dollars are circulating. All day after the murder, the company remained silent; they did not make any public comments about the death of their leading employee.