In Mykolaiv, a deputy of the “Opposition Block” party is being tried for a fake shelling of a soybean warehouse

A hearing was held in the Korabelny District Court of Mykolaiv in the case of the city council deputy from the “Opposition Block ” Oleg Afanasyev.

This is reported by “MykVisti” The correspondent of the publication attended the hearing, which took place on June 3.

Afanasyev is accused of fraud and misappropriation of grain worth almost $900 thousand, which belonged to agro-entrepreneur Oksana Solskaya.

According to the case materials, in 2022, soybean grain was to be exported under a contract for $2 million. The transshipment was to be carried out by the company “Samga”, the beneficiary of which is Afanasyev. Due to the full-scale Russian invasion, work at the pier stopped. Later, the grain was moved to a port warehouse, where, according to the investigation, Afanasyev staged a missile strike: he received missile fragments, scattered them in the warehouse and loaded only part of the soybeans there, and probably exported the rest. Some of the products were later found in warehouses in Reni, where law enforcement officers were prevented from gaining access.

In June 2022, Afanasyev himself filed a police report about the destruction of a batch of soybeans due to a “strike”. The prosecutor claims that in a telephone conversation he himself confirmed the staging.

At the hearing, the court returned the case to the preparatory stage to clarify the defendant’s rights, but Afanasyev agreed to be considered by the same panel of the court. The victim’s lawyer filed a civil lawsuit against Afanasyev, his accomplice Yevhen Galichenko and the Samga company for UAH 34.2 million ($812 thousand), and also claimed $10 thousand in preliminary expenses.

Afanasyev himself does not admit guilt, as does Solska’s claim. The parties did not agree on the order of interrogations. The court announced a break until the next hearing, where they will begin studying written evidence.

In parallel, Oksana Solska herself has been in the Mykolaiv pre-trial detention center for over three months. She is suspected of tax evasion, although this article only provides for a fine. On May 21, her lawyers unsuccessfully petitioned for the judge to be disqualified, and on May 22, while awaiting a hearing on changing the preventive measure, she was detained for the second time by the SBU and handed over a new suspicion. Only two hours later, the court returned to the issue of the preventive measure.