Case description
On May 12, 2021, the HACC found Moldovan citizen Serhii Nerukh guilty of transferring a bribe to a military prosecutor for lifting the seizure of a vessel illegally transporting cargo from the occupied Crimea. He was sentenced to 5 years.
On November 30, 2016, Ukrainian border guards detained the Tanzanian ship Sky Moon in the Danube riverbed. This vessel was carrying soda from the Crimean plant of Firtash, namely from the officially closed port of temporarily occupied Sevastopol to Moldova. Subsequently, Sky Moon was confiscated and transferred to the Ukrainian Navy.
Interestingly, this is the first confiscated vessel for illegally visiting the temporarily occupied Crimea
Businessman Serhii Nerukh transferred a bribe of USD 75,000 to the military prosecutor of the southern region of Ukraine, Maksym Yakubovskyi, so that the seizure of the ship and cargo (3 tons of soda) could be lifted and returned to their owners. Nerukh himself is the owner of the company that owned the seized soda and which delivered it for the glass industry of Moldova).
Yakubovskyi did not like the proposal, so he reported it to the Prosecutor General's Office. During a meeting at the Shooters restaurant in Kyiv, Yakubovskyi gave Nerukh fake court decisions on lifting the seizures, and Nerukh allegedly put the money in the folder. The prosecutor voluntarily gave the money to the investigation, and Nerukh was detained immediately.
The case was qualified under Article 369, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Proposal, promise or providing an improper advantage to an official). The court imprisoned Nerukh for 5 years without confiscation of property, but the bribe was still confiscated.
The appellate instance did not change this verdict, so the lawyers filed cassation appeals. The Supreme Court appointed a new trial in the appellate instance, but the latter refused again. Later, in December 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict.
