Gontareva, Fuchs comment on accusations of facilitating Yanukovych’s money siphoning from Ukraine

Cash and sovereign bonds were transferred to a Cyprus-based company, while Ms Gontareva, who worked at Investment Capital Ukraine at the time, was an intermediary, the TSN news service said.

In an exclusive comment to TSN, a businessman from Kharkiv and Moscow, Pavel Fuchs, denied the fact of acquiring an offshore company, but stated that he had received relevant offers many times.

"As for me, the information is not just incorrect, it’s merely rumors. I discussed this, and more than one person was sifting through the market, but it never went beyond discussions," he said, adding that Serhiy Kurchenko has never come up to him with such offers.

Read alsoDirty deal traced to three Ukrainian tycoons – Al Jazeera (Video)"No, I'm not familiar with Kurchenko," assured the businessman.

Fuchs also noted that he never considered the issue of acquiring companies associated with the man. "I even learned the names of the companies from the press, and when the names were published earlier, I didn't recall them. I was once offered only a single company," said the entrepreneur.

He also denied any dealings with Ukrainian People's Deputy Oleksandr Onyshchenko, in particular with respect to Cyprus-based shell companies.

"Maybe they were preparing an offer for me, but I don’t even remember if he ever offered this to me," Fuchs said.

According to him, the Cyprus-based company mentioned in the Al Jazeera investigation does not belong to him. Fuchs added that he does not own any Ukrainian bonds, never has, and does not plan to.

Read alsoNBU responds to accusations of facilitating Yanukovych's money withdrawalThe businessman, who identifies himself as a Ukrainian national, suggested that Al Jazeera’s investigation was in favor of his competitors. "I think many people profit from this… I want to invest in some projects and maybe I'm standing on someone’s way. I think it’s the framework of the Onyshchenko case as I'm now part of these materials and they try to get me involved in something,” Fuchs said.

Onyshenko himself declined to comment to the TSN, but in an interview with other media also refuted the information cited in Al Jazeera report.

All of this would have looked like a showdown between fugitives and oligarchs, had the Ukrainian state not declared this money as criminal and returned it to the state budget in the framework of special confiscation. The Prosecutor General's Office does not confirm the Al Jazeera report, only hinting that many of those currently in power would like to get hold of a share of Yanukovych's money or cash in on the entire process.

Gontareva in her exclusive comment said she did not see anything wrong with transferring sovereign bonds as a loan to the Ukrainian budget. Despite accusations of complicity, she claims that her company was simply a financial intermediary, adding that the PGO did not question her in this regard.