Mindich Tapes and the Berlinska Scandal: Five Questions Worth Asking

What happened - and why this is not just a "plant"

On April 23, 2026, former Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Stanislav Bronevytsky published a transcript of recordings dated July 8, 2025. Among them: a phrase attributed to Mindich - "she pushed Defence City through" - and a dialogue with Umierov: "Are we paying her a salary?" - "You're the one paying her." Bronevytsky separately noted that the identification of the person called "Masha" was made by the detectives themselves, as recorded in the official protocol. He cited specific details: the protocol of August 29, 2025, the time window between 7:37 and 8:50, and the corresponding audio files - and publicly called on NABU and the SAP to release them.

Berlinska hit back hard: fake, photoshopped, screenshots without audio, she had herself demanded Umierov's resignation - how could he possibly have been paying her? The media picked up her version and ran with it.

Meanwhile, Oleksandr Dubinsky, posting from his Telegram channel while in pre-trial detention, claimed to know exactly who "Ihor" and "Ira" are in Mindich's payroll - Ihor Khmeliv (owner of Fire Point) and Iryna Vereshchuk. Vereshchuk responded with characteristic grace: "I had no idea one could run a media operation from remand prison under NSDC sanctions" - and the same day transferred 100 hryvnias toward Dubinsky's bail.

Should Dubinsky's words be taken seriously?

No. Dubinsky is not Bronevytsky. His claims contain no references to specific procedural documents. Given his track record and the circumstances of his detention, his version deserves caution. Moreover, if one follows his own logic - if "Ihor" is Khmeliv - then "Ira" is far more likely Iryna Terekh, Fire Point's CTO, not Vereshchuk. The internal logic simply doesn't hold.

The same caution applies to the Facebook post in which Andriy Bohdan claims that Berlinska "agreed to an informant arrangement with the SBU to avoid responsibility for directing the enemy strike on Chernihiv, and became a mouthpiece for the authorities." Bohdan is a former head of the Presidential Office with his own scores to settle and his own agendas to run.

And yet. The fact that several independent, unconnected voices from entirely different camps are all pointing in the same direction at the same time is not a coincidence. It is a signal that should not be ignored.

Question one: why is NABU silent?

Whatever anyone says, Bronevytsky is not an anonymous Telegram channel. He is a person with access to case materials, citing a specific procedural document and publicly inviting NABU and the SAP to respond.

There has been no official response. Where is the rebuttal? There isn't one.

NABU Director Kryvonos warned back in November 2025 about "a campaign of manipulation" around the Midas case. Yet in this specific instance, neither Kryvonos nor SAP chief Klymenko has made a single statement addressing Bronevytsky's materials.

The most probable explanation: the materials are genuine, and for tactical reasons they have not been made public. Which is precisely why NABU cannot officially deny what is recorded in its own protocols.

Bronevytsky raises a separate question that has also been left hanging in the air: why does the suspicion notice served to Mindich under Article 344 of the Criminal Code - unlawful influence on a state official - make no mention of the calls to Zhumadilov, the discussions of appointments, or the salary arrangements? Why did some fragments of that same July 8 conversation make it into the suspicion notice while others disappeared? Who selected them, and why, and to what end?

Question two: what exactly was Berlinska criticizing Umierov for?

Berlinska publicly demanded Umierov's resignation. That is a fact, easily googled. But it is worth looking more carefully at the specific grounds.

It turns out the trigger was the conflict between Umierov and the head of the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), Maryna Bezrukova, in January 2025. That was the moment when Berlinska transformed from a critic of Umierov into the loudest public voice defending Bezrukova.

"Umierov's management system is falling apart before our eyes", she declared in an interview with Novoye Vremya. "The only way out for the minister is to sit down with everyone and reach an agreement - or resign."

In that same interview she spoke about the scale of the resource at stake. The DPA under Bezrukova had a 2025 budget of 298 billion hryvnias - a monopoly over all lethal procurement. "Neither the DPA nor the DOT had any intention of embezzling budgets", she assured listeners. She understood perfectly well what she was defending.

Umierov removed Bezrukova and installed Zhumadilov in her place. The same Zhumadilov that Umierov calls in that same July 8 recording to discuss the body armour deal. The circle closes. One is left to wonder whether Berlinska's criticism of Umierov over Bezrukova's dismissal was a fight against corruption in the Defence Ministry - or a defence of one particular procurement fiefdom against a rival vertical. Regrettably, the latter reading is difficult to dismiss.

Question three: who won from Defence City?

Now to Defence City - the law that, according to the recordings, Berlinska "pushed through." Passed in August 2025, it came into force on January 5, 2026. Residents are exempt from corporate income tax, land tax, and property tax until 2036. But the main prize is the right to conceal information about ultimate beneficial owners in public registries, plus simplified export controls without state authorisation.

Who benefits from a law that allows defence companies to hide their owners? Not society.

Anti-corruption organisations, the Council of Arms Manufacturers, UCDI - all of them publicly warned about the risks of "managed access" and opacity as far back as the summer of 2025. The law passed anyway. To the accompaniment of approving media coverage and the tacit endorsement of people whose word carries weight.

The question is straightforward: who wins from a law that allows defence companies to conceal their owners? And what role did public figures with credible reputations play in manufacturing the consensus that allowed it to pass?

One might argue that public advocacy for Defence City was selfless, that no money changed hands. Perhaps. But the credibility of a person branded "mother of drones," combat veteran, anti-corruption voice - lending that brand to a law like this - is worth incomparably more than any paid advertisement.

Question four: what does "equidistant position" actually mean?

When The New York Times published its investigation into Fire Point and the company's possible connections to the presidential inner circle in October 2025, Berlinska publicly vouched for the company: "As of October 2025, Fire Point is effective. Strikes by these drones are creating enormous problems for the enemy. Report complete." She emphasised that she maintained an "equidistant position": "I have no production of my own, no business stake, no political office, no obligations to anyone."

Then, a month later - on November 21, 2025 - after it had already become known that NABU was investigating Fire Point, that Midas suspect Ihor Fursenko (callsign Ryoshyk) had worked at the company as an administrator, and that Mindich had offered to buy 50% of Fire Point's shares - Berlinska served as moderator of that same company's press conference.

That "equidistant position" looks rather different once you know all of this.

Question five: what logic drives the transition?

Ukraine has developed a specific model - one that might be called an infrastructure of reputational cover. It requires no direct bribery. It runs on the convergence of interests, access to officials, and accumulated public trust.

A volunteer or civic activist becomes a nodal point where several things intersect simultaneously. First: genuine, useful work - Berlinska really did train 76,000 drone operators; that is not fiction. Second: access to decisions - abolishing customs duties on drones, lobbying for legislative changes, moderating forums where manufacturers and officials meet. Third: reputational protection for reforms and structures with which the activist becomes publicly associated.

But something else runs in parallel: duty-free import lobbying, legislative advocacy, moderation of press conferences for weapons manufacturers with scandal-ridden backgrounds - Fire Point in November 2025 being the obvious case in point. Participation in shaping public attitudes toward Defence City.

The question is not whether Victory Drones is a useful project. The question is: what logic governs the transition from human rights work to systemic lobbying in a sector where hundreds of billions circulate? Is it a personal choice - or a set of external forces that placed a person in that role?

Instead of a conclusion: a verdict on the system, not the individual

In recordings made by NABU in the course of an official criminal investigation, a minister of defence and a businessman now subject to an international arrest warrant calmly discuss salary payments "in envelopes" to people covering key areas of their business: "Ihor - 50, Masha - 20, Ira - 50." Regardless of who exactly stands behind each name - the mere existence of this payroll is a verdict not on specific individuals, but on the system as a whole.

A system in which a minister of defence negotiates with a man NABU will later charge with unlawfully influencing state officials - a system in which those same conversations cover body armour, salaries, and appointments in a single breath - is not an isolated corruption incident. It is a vertical in which public figures from every sector - state, business, civil society - are organically embedded in the distribution of resources.

This system does not run on criminals alone. It runs because a sufficient number of people with genuine achievements turn out to be functionally useful to those who control the money flows. Sometimes knowingly. Sometimes not. The difference matters morally. But systemically - it is not the point.

And until NABU answers Bronevytsky's question about which part of the August 29, 2025 protocol made it into the suspicion notice and which did not, these questions will remain open. Along with every name on that payroll.