A clandestine warehouse with hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid whose owners still can’t be established by the law enforcement agencies was also being used by the humanitarian HQ in Lviv Palace of Arts whose work was coordinated by Lviv RMA. NGL.media found documentary evidence of the fact that at least one batch of aid was directly given to the warehouse in Ubyni village in spring 2022.
The further destiny of this humanitarian aid remained unknown, and administration of Lviv Palace of Arts and Lviv RMA are avoiding answers about their possible involvement with this warehouse.
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Humanitarian HQ for refugees’ support was set up in Lviv Palace of Arts exhibition centre in Lviv downtown, is in communal ownership of Lviv Regional Council during the early days of Russian invasion. Yurii Vizniak, Palace of Arts CEO, became a head of humanitarian HQ.
Considering the amount of humanitarian aid coming from various countries, there was the need to sort and store it, for which purpose various warehouses in Lviv and suburbs were used. However, one warehouse – on the outskirts of Ubyni village, 35 km from Lviv – wasn’t mentioned in a single document or mass media publication; so, when in spring 2023 hundreds of tons of unregistered humanitarian aid were found there, it turned out there was no one responsible for these goods. As of the moment, the investigation yielded no results – no suspects or filed charges.
Still, NGL.media editorial team found documents NGL.media has these documents, but they can’t be published due to keeping the anonymity of the source. NGL.media verified the authenticity of these documents , which prove that on April 4, 2022, the humanitarian HQ in Lviv Palace of Arts sent a large batch of men’s, women’s and children’s winter clothes to the warehouse in Ubyni village. What is meant here is 15 palettes of clothes, 150-200 kg each.
The consignee was Iarosval Maksymovych, the official lessee of warehouses in Ubyni where the Bureau of Economic Security investigators found more than a thousand palettes of humanitarian aid in April this year.
One of the warehouses in Ubyni village where hundreds of tons of unregistered humanitarian aid were found (photo by NGL.media)
Maksymovych, whose signature is affixed to one of the documents NGL.media found, confirmed that he received for storage 15 palettes of winter clothes from humanitarian HQ whose work was coordinated by Lviv RMA. «These were taken away sometime in winter. I don’t remember exactly when it took place, but it was before the searches [in April 2023]», he told NGL.media, refusing to speak about the owner or owners of the other goods in the Ubyni warehouses.
NGL.media editorial team managed to find the driver who was transporting the palettes with clothes. Volodymyr Lopatka, 35, confirmed that he in spring 2022 he took goods from the HQ in Lviv Palace of Arts and brought it to the warehouse in Ubyni.
«The warehouse was empty back then, except for some farming equipment. I was driving my own car, and they were supposed to pay for my fuel, but they never did, though I presented all the documents», said Volodymyr Lopatka. – In general, I was transporting goods from this HQ several times, but it was just once to Ubyni, in spring last year Volodymyr Lopatka couldn’t remember the exact date .
According to him, «two ordinary guys, workers» received the goods. Volodymyr Lopatka also gave us a phone number of a point of contact from the HQ – a volunteer Oksana Paliienko who also was an administrator of the humanitarian HQ’s Facebook page. However, her phone number isn’t active any more, and she never answered our questions in the messenger, despite having read them.
It’s worthwhile mentioning that up till now no one from Lviv RMA administration, Lviv regional council or Lviv Palace of Arts ever admitted that the regional authorities were using warehouses in Ubyni – regardless of the fact that this case has been public for several months now. Judging from what Maksym Kozytskyi, head of Lviv RMA said, the discovery of warehouses packed with humanitarian aid became news for him.
This story is being swept under the carpet. We still managed to find these warehouses, owners and lessees; we were digging through the trash to get the Ministry of Defense documents – and we won’t stop. Your donate will help us
NGL.media sent several requests to the administration of Lviv Palace of Arts in order to understand were the humanitarian aid from the regional HQ ended up, but we never received a definite answer.
First, we received a written answer about the impossibility to provide this information «in connection with absence thereof».
Iurii Vizniak, director general, Lviv Palace of Arts (photo from Facebook)
Then Iurii Vizniak, director general of Lviv Palace of Arts (LPA) and head of humanitarian HQ, said that he recollects the case of sending «10-15 palettes of winter clothes» for storage, which then was shipped to Kherson «some time in winter».
He also promised that they will search for the documents, but NGL.media never received them. In response to the second request we just received gratitude for «providing information about existence of this type of freight and keeper.
Oleksandra Tymchyshyn, deputy director of LPA stated that the documents for that period have never been organized: «All these papers we were collecting to register [the transfer of the humanitarian aid] are stored in dozens of boxes. These boxes are in the archive, approximately sorted by months – either 10 or 20 boxes. 300 volunteers were collecting them, everyone doing whatever they could and how they could.
We offered our help searching documents in the archive, agreeing to the presence of an LPA employee or a video camera to avoid suspicions in documents disappearance, but received a rejection. «You need a person who, so to speak, will be standing with you there for three days… 80% of our employees are on vacations now. We’ve launched the exhibition activity, and it’s three times more intense than before the lockdown, and we don’t have much administrative personnel», said Ms. Tymchyshyn, emphasizing there were other challenges too. – This archive in our organization is the accounts department responsibility. Our accountants are taking their annual leave until August 18 including, from what I remember».
We don’t know whether LPA employees at least tried to find documents connected with the freight transported to Ubyni. We know for sure these documents exist, but for some reason they are being covered up, as well as the information who and when took these goods from the warehouse, if at all.
Lviv Regional Military Administration refused to comment on this freight.
Another investigation by NGL.mediaBased on the results of six months investigation, this case still has no official suspects, despite both the premises owners and lessees being identified. First the Bureau of Economic Security was in charge of the case, then in was passed to Lviv police for one day, and finally the Office of Prosecutor General took over. We send them the request to understand who is investigating this case and why it was taken away from Lviv agency, but as of the moment of this material publishing, we received no answer.
In late May NGL.media journalists found documents near one of the warehouses that prove that produce for the Ukrainian military manufactured under the Ministry of Defense order could have been stored there, in addition to the humanitarian aid.
In late June Svitlana Lanio, the investigating judge from Lychakivskyi district court withdrew the seizure of two warehouses in Ubyni village. The petition to withdraw the seizure was given by the warehouses’ owners, Andrii Sliuzar and Luibomyr Mamchuk, claiming they can’t use their property despite not being the suspects or charged in the criminal proceedings within which the seizure was made on May 5.
Several days ago Iaroslav Zhelezniak, member of parliament, stated in his Telegram channel that at least 114 palettes from Ubyni warehouse that were planned to be given to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, were fully destroyed by mice and another part badly damaged.
P.S. Almost a week after the publication of this investigation, the Humanitarian HQ of Lviv RMA confirmed the fact of the use of warehouses in Ubyni.