President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated he had seen nothing new in the recently released investigation into his offshores. He also noted that he had not used them for money laundering.
In an interview with the TV channel ICTV, the Head of State noted that all data from the Pandora Papers had been pulled up even before the elections.
«In 2019, I saw the same movie on the channels of the oligarch (Petro—Ed. note) Poroshenko, who had shown it because he had understood that there was nothing on me, there was no dirt... All this is an old story, I have heard it all, I have seen all this, all these details. It's pleasing that I did not see any new detail. This suggests that since 2019 Mr. Petro has not found anything on me as the President of Ukraine.»
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine
He also explained the need to do business using offshore companies by the fact that during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, all businessmen had done this, especially those who had worked in the sector of television. In that way it was possible to avoid the influence of politics on the companies’ work. Zelenskyy also complained that at that time his business had been stormed by the tax authorities—they had come almost every day.
"I personally built a business in Ukraine without budgets, without the state. From scratch. Neither I nor a single member of Studio Kvartal 95 has been involved in money laundering in 2019, and since 2012, and since 2001, and since 2019. We were exclusively engaged in creativity."
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine
Context. A major investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed that President Zelenskyy had been involved in a branching network of more than ten offshore companies co-owned by his longtime friends and television business partners. The brothers Borys and Serhiy Shefir, as well as Ivan Bakanov were among them. It was also established that the income of the Head of State had been bound to the possible laundering of funds by Privatbank and Ihor Kolomoisky’s money.
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