Yegor Firsov, the former acting head of Ukraine’s Ecological Inspection Service, appears to be the latest victim in the ongoing drive to expel pro-Western reformers from the Ukrainian government.
The Cabinet fired Firsov on May 13 all of a sudden and without any reasons given, according to him. The Cabinet and the President’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on Firsov’s firing.
Firsov attributes his dismissal to the resistance of powerful vested interests to his work. Specifically, he has fired most regional top officials at his agency and increased fines for oligarch-owned businesses that pollute the environment.
He also said he has had to resist pressure and corrupt offers from powerbrokers, including ones from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.
“Firsov’s appointment gave Ukraine’s environmental organizations a hope that something would change at last and that all necessary action would be taken to prevent environmental pollution,” Olena Miskun, an activist at environmental group Ekodiya, told the Kyiv Post. “Firsov’s team was aiming to remove existing corruption schemes.”
She said that after Firsov’s appointment “businesses that pollute the environment felt a real threat that they would have to completely compensate damage caused to the environment.”
Firsov’s appointment
Firsov became the acting head of the State Ecological Inspection Service in November. The Cabinet initially held a competition for the job of the agency’s head, in which Firsov took part, but eventually failed to choose a winner.
“The Cabinet appointed me the acting head to avoid losing time on red tape,” Firsov told the Kyiv Post. “The inspection service was in dire straits, and it had to be reformed fast. As far as the new competition (for the agency head) is concerned, competitions for state jobs have been suspended during the (COVID-19) lockdown.”
Firsov said he had been politically backed by Zelensky’s former Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and ex-Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.
“Bohdan and Honcharuk’s Cabinet provided serious political support,” he told the Kyiv Post. “It was very important for reforming the agency. Both they and I faced the goal of making the Ecological Inspection Service a successful reform case.
He said he had received their support in human resource policy and had not received any unlawful instructions from them.
“I asked Bohdan what I should do when I inspect a company owned by an oligarch. and he said ‘act according to the law’,” Firsov told the Babel news site after he was fired.
Firsov appears to have lost political support after Bohdan and Honcharuk were fired in February and March, respectively.
Withstanding pressure
In March Firsov’s car was burned, and a criminal case was opened into the incident.
Firsov believes it is directly linked to his activities as the head of the agency. He said a corrupt official fired from his agency or a business polluting the environment could be behind it.
He also said that certain people had tried to influence and pressure him.
“Different people came to me to discuss different issues,” Firsov told the Kyiv Post. “They proposed appointing and firing certain people, raiding certain companies and leaving others alone.”
He said, however, that he had rejected all such proposals.
Firsov said people who had tried to influence him included Verkhovna Rada members from different factions, including the Servant of the People, lawmakers’ aides and government officials. He refused to give most of the names, however.
He said that Yevhen Shevchenko, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, had initially tried to impose his proteges on his agency and then started opposing him. He attributed Shevchenko’s opposition to his alleged ties to Glusco, a gas station chain that has been inspected by the ecological agency.
Shevchenko did not respond to requests for comment, while Glusco denied Firsov’s accusations.
“Firsov’s statements don’t contain any specific references to any concrete facts,” Glusco said. “The statement on Glusco is based exclusively on unconfirmed information from unknown sources and Firsov could have confused the names of gas station chains.”
Pervasive corruption
Firsov argued that the ecological inspection service had been “one of the country’s most corrupt agencies” before he took over.
“The ecological inspection service was a corporation,” he told the Ukrainska Pradva news site. “Their business was based on overlooking damage to the environment in exchange for bribes.”
State ecological inspectors also had consulting businesses that profiteered from their cooperation with the agency, he said.
Firsov said that, when he was appointed, he had found an alleged list of individuals profiteering from graft schemes at the agency.
“In the agency head’s office, I found a list of regions and hand-written names opposite them,” he told the Kyiv Post. “Apparently this was intended to make sure that ‘young and inexperienced’ successors could understand what’s going on.”
Specifically, “(oligarch Ihor) Kolomoisky” and “the Prosecutor General’s Office” are written under Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, (Oleg) Nedava, a former lawmaker from ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, is written under Donetsk Oblast, Dubnevych (an apparent reference to lawmaker Yaroslav Dubnevych or his brother Bohdan) is written under Lviv Oblast, governors are written under Vinnytsia, Zakarpattia and Lviv oblasts, and “Presidential Administration” is written under Kharkiv Oblast.
Kolomoisky denied the accusations of wrongdoing, while others on the list did not respond to requests for comment.
Kolomoisky also told the Kyiv Post he had texted Firsov and then Energy and Environment Minister Oleksiy Orzhel in December and recommended that they appoint a certain Ihor Gorzhei as the head of the ecology agency’s branch in Poltava and Cherkasy oblasts. However, Gorzhei was not appointed, and another person got the job as a result of a competition.
Cleaning the agency
One of Firsov’s major tasks was to cleanse the inspection service and fire tainted officials. He said that he had replaced 85 percent of top officials at the agency.
One of the fired officials – Dmytro Shybko, head of the ecological agency’s branch in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast – felt quite confident and confronted Firsov.
“It’s not even clear who will resign – me or you,” he told Firsov. “I’ve survived four presidents, eight prime ministers, 12 ministers. Where are they, and where am I?”
Firsov also said he had initiated criminal cases against ecological inspectors in Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa oblasts.
Increased fines
Firsov said that the inspection service had imposed Hr 588 million in fines for polluting the environment in January to April – twice as much as in the same period last year. Of this amount, 35 million was paid to the budget – also twice as much as last year.
He said that many of the fines had not been transferred to the budget because they are being disputed in court.
Specifically, the agency fined oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s Metinvest Hr 10 million, while the previous fine for Metinvest was a mere Hr 86,000, Firsov said. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who abruptly fired Firsov, is an ex-employee of Akhmetov’s other company, DTEK, but has denied any current connections to the oligarch.
Meanwhile, billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky’s Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant didn’t not give ecological inspectors access to their factory, he added. He said that this is a huge problem because businesses can avoid giving inspectors access by paying a miniscule fine of Hr 750.
There are also other hurdles for the ecological agency.
Firsov said that fines for environmental violations had not changed since 1997, and in some cases they are absurdly tiny – for example, Hr 77 for air pollution.
Meanwhile, rules for calculating fines for air pollution were canceled by the discredited Kyiv Administrative District Court in 2018. Firsov had to push for new rules to be adopted, which happened only on May 19.
During his stint in office, Firsov also proposed submitting legislation to increase fines for pollution, make the monitoring of pollution more effective and create infrastructure for garbage disposal.
Déjà vu
Firsov’s dismissal appears to be a déjà vu.
In 2014 he became a lawmaker from ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc.
However, in 2016 Firsov left the Poroshenko Bloc and was expelled from parliament by the party. He believes the real reason behind the decision was his criticism of corruption in the bloc, including the alleged graft of ex-Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky.
Hranovsky denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
“There is a big difference between Poroshenko and Zelensky,” Firsov told the Kyiv Post. “I believe they came to rule this country based on different motives. The main indicator was that during my career I didn’t hear even a hint that I should send some unlawful income to top officials.”
But there is a similarity too.
“The paradox is that, like in the situation with my parliamentary mandate, I would quietly keep working if I kept silent and didn’t publicly expose the problems of the inspection service and didn’t raid big businesses,” he added.
Previous dismissals
Firsov’s dismissal was preceded by that of three other pro-Western reformers in April and May – Serhiy Verlanov, head of the State Tax Service, Maksym Nefyodov, head of the State Customs Service, and Yuriy Vitrenko, executive director of state oil and gas firm Naftogaz Ukrainy.
In April, a Verkhovna Rada committee also approved a bill that would enable the dismissal of Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
Before that, other reformers were either fired or resigned. These include ex-Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka and his deputies, top investigator Sergii Gorbatuk, as well as ex-Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk, ex-Economy Minister Timofy Milovanov and Oleksandr Danylyuk, ex-secretary of the National Defense and Security Council.
