NABU publishes recordings featuring voice of presidential office deputy head Mudra — she discussed bank takeover, bail for Halushchenko, and replacement of SAPO chief

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has published a full video with new audio recordings related to the case involving the seizure of Sens Bank, which the agency has dubbed “Forrest Gump.”

In the recordings, NABU claims, the voice of Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the Office of the President, can be heard.

Mudra speaks in Russian with a former member of parliament whom NABU considers a possible figure in the case — presumably Maksym Mykytasʼ. The main topics of conversation are a scheme to gain control of Sens Bank, bail for former minister Herman Halushchenko, and the prospects of replacing the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

According to the content of the recordings, Mudra says that Davyd (possibly Arakhamia) and the committee chair (presumably the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Daniil Hetmantsev) came to see her. In her words, “these crooks cannot be trusted with the bank, there are cash flows there,” so she was tasked with “taking” the bank. Mudra adds that the money will “be delivered” wherever a top official from the Office of the President directs — his name is omitted from the recording, but NABU believes this may refer to Andriy Yermak. Mudra describes the management of Sens Bank as “little beads”: “They crawled in like kittens: just take us.” According to her, these people themselves acknowledged that the aforementioned top official is their “master.”

The recordings also discuss the election of loyalists to the public council at NABU and the prospects of replacing SAPO head Oleksandr Klymenko. Mudra calls Klymenko “unprincipled,” “not ours,” says he “engages with you situationally in the moment,” but may “come after you the same way he came after Andriy and all the others.” In her assessment, if Klymenko is reappointed for another seven years, “we’ll all be f**ked.” The deputy head of the Office of the President also states that Bankova has no personnel reserve, unlike the “Americans,” who “build a personnel reserve from NABU people” for all the bodies where they run competitions: “They took the customs service, they took the BEB, they’ll take ARMA now.”

The audio recordings indicate that businessman Tymur Mindych continued to communicate with the leadership of the Office of the President after fleeing to Israel. In a recording from June 8, Mudra says that “our Israeli refugee, Tymur, is calling,” and asks a top official, whose name is not mentioned, to “take Sens Bank.” Mindych reported that “there are cash flows there, serious money.” Mudra separately emphasizes that Mindych and this top official from Bankova are in contact.

A separate block of recordings concerns bail for former minister Herman Halushchenko. The former MP states that “200 million was brought for Herman, we’re now thinking about how to pay it,” and asks that no one be told — “not Vadyk (presumably deputy Stolar), no one.” He assures that he is personally prepared to provide around EUR 965,000 (50 million hryvnias) and knows how to do it. Then another former MP says: “We need to either make it 150 or nothing. You put in 50, Nikita puts in 50, and Artur puts in 50. If we do this, you can just go to the Office of the President yourselves.”

The recordings mention that around EUR 965,000 (50 million hryvnias) for the bail was brought to the former MP’s office in bags — the task then arose to count the money and separate 15 million. However, employees of the GUR turned out to be in the parking lot, and the participants feared they would “get their heads torn off.” The person identified in the recordings as a “well-known businessman” assured them there was nothing to worry about and “everything is fine.” Later, Mudra calls the head of the supervisory board of Sens Bank to check whether the money had arrived, and asks them “not to let her down,” because “they’re already stomping their feet over there.” To deposit around EUR 2.9 million (150 million hryvnias) in bail for Halushchenko, according to the participants in the conversation, financial monitoring will “open a window for them” when the system goes down and the payment does not fall under manual oversight.

At the end of the presented recordings, a female voice, presumably belonging to Mudra, quotes someone: “He says: ‘Corruption needs to be systematized and controlled — there’s no need to fight it.'” Her interlocutor adds: “And to lead it.”

Following the release of the recordings, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Mudra from her position as deputy head of the Office of the President.