Former deputy head of the President’s Office Sergei Trofimov was seen at the Mandarin Oriental Jumeira hotel in Dubai, where he supposedly spent at least a week, resting with his newly-married wife in a luxury room for almost 4 thousand euros per night.
The total cost of the “honeymoon” of the dismissed official is about UAH 1 million. with an official annual salary of UAH 400 thousand.
Trofimov was fired from the President’s Office in early November. As Mikhail Podolyak, Advisor to the Head of the Office of Andrey Yermak on Information Policy, explained, the reason was “certain shortcomings in regional moderation”.
” Trofimov, it seems to me, is somewhat soft to moderate regional stories ,” said Podolyak.
Media sources reported that this is, first of all, about the failed election campaign in the local elections: “Two weeks before the elections, we called the governors and curators of the regions and asked what numbers they were planning to collect. Where they promised 12 mandates, the party won eight. They promised us 14 second rounds. In the end, only two”.
Instead of Trofimov, Kirill Timoshenko was put in charge of regional policy.
Trofimov was left in the Office as an advisor. Just the day before, he got married with a graduate of the KNU. Shevchenko by Anastasia Romanenko. The newlyweds were personally married by the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine Onufriy – as you know, Trofimov is a zealous parishioner of this church, which promotes support for the aggressor country. In addition, recently he was also seen in the form of a subdeacon under Onuphrius.
To unwind after a grueling election campaign, the ex-deputy head of the OP, together with his wife, went to the United Arab Emirates. This country, as you know, is one of the few destinations where Ukrainians can go to rest abroad – only a negative PCR test is needed to enter. Trofimov and Romanenko went to rest at the five-star Mandarin Oriental Jumeirah hotel in Dubai. The hotel is not the most luxurious in the emirate, but on the first line, with its own beach and a good club lounge. According to the Booking.com service, the cost of a week’s stay in “Mandarin” is 23,885 euros + 5,406 euros of taxes = 29,291 euros, or about 975 thousand UAH.
According to our sources, the couple went to Dubai in business class, which is also not cheap. For example, for UIA a direct flight from Boryspil to Dubai International Airport for one in business class will cost UAH 67 thousand, for two – UAH 134 thousand. In total, only accommodation and a flight to Dubai cost Trofimov and his wife 1.1 million UAH.
It is noteworthy that according to the declaration that Trofimov filed before his dismissal from the post of Deputy Head of the President’s Office, his income for 2019 amounted to slightly less than UAH 400,000. And even if we take into account another 825 thousand UAH. other income, it is unlikely that an honest official would spend his entire annual income on a week’s vacation.
Moreover, in June of this year Trofimov has already spent quite a bit, having bought it for UAH 1.2 million. Mercedes S500L 2013 release. Thus, spending on luxury vacations clearly does not fit the image of an honest official that Trofimov has been building in the media for the past year and a half. Where the money for a new car and a luxury vacation for an official of this rank comes from is a rhetorical question. For example, it is known about the probable participation of Trofimov in the shadow schemes of the construction market, the media wrote that at least one billion hryvnyas can be earned on the scheme of issuing construction permits alone per year. It cannot be ruled out that it is precisely because of the interests of Trofimov and his entourage that one of the key reforms affecting the investment climate has been delayed in the country – the reform of the State Architectural Construction Inspection (SACI).
Of course, it is unlikely that the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption will now deal with it, because the Constitutional Court has so far blocked the monitoring functions of the department. Nevertheless, the head of the OP, Andrei Yermak, should first of all think about whether it is worth keeping in the ranks of his advisers such an amateur “feasts during the plague”.
