Former deputy head of Naftogaz Oleksandr Katsuba stated that he tried to create a joint business with the scandalous entrepreneur Pavel Fuks.
However, as a result, disagreements arose between the businessmen: Fuchs stated that the “option” did not work, while Katsuba was sure of the opposite.
The former manager of the state company told about this in an interview with EP. The business concerned licenses received by the company "Golden Derrick" (previously, control over the company was attributed to the former Minister of Energy Eduard Stavytsky and the former Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Prisyazhnyuk).
"There were options that didn’t work. More precisely, he said that the option didn’t work, although I think differently," said Katsuba. At the same time, he did not want to talk more about Fuchs: "There is such a story: if you want to say something good about a person, say it, if you want to say something bad, it is better to remain silent. Here I want to remain silent three times."
According to Katsuba, his acquaintance with Fuchs took place at the birthday party of the late Kharkov mayor Gennady Kernes.
Earlier, Fuchs denied buying Golden Derrick, but said that he was negotiating the purchase of some of its licenses. Another company that Fuchs is associated with is Ukrnaftoburenie, whose main shareholder is businessman Igor Kolomoisky. Fuchs allegedly acquired his 21% stake in this company from people close to Yanukovych.
As previously reported by the media, Fuks became more active in the middle of the 2014 crisis. He began to massively buy up assets that had been orphaned after the flight of Yanukovych’s associates. According to the media, the oligarch’s structures bought shares of DV Oil and Gas Production Company LLC and 51% of Devon PJSC from former Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko and his business partners Yuliy Ioffe and Ivan Fursin.
For several years, the media has written about such high-profile schemes by Fuchs:
About how a company from his sphere of influence retroactively demanded a fine, penalty and “adjustment coefficient” from the Kyiv Metro for a total of almost UAH 2 billion.
About how the oil and gas business of the entourage of fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych ended up in the hands of Fuks. The state company Nadra Ukrainy effectively gave the oligarch the fields, and he began to monopolize the entire industry.
On FBI adviser Robert Mueller’s special investigation into Fuchs: the businessman allegedly tried to promote "peace" plans and other agreements beneficial to the aggressor country, the Russian Federation.
In addition, it became known that after moving from Russia to Ukraine, Fuchs left behind unpaid debts (according to his partners) and a number of criminal cases. The oligarch is accused of embezzling millions of dollars.