Vladimir Kistion: Secrets of the “Vinnitsa Court”. PART 2

CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Vladimir Kistion: Secrets of the “Vinnitsa Court”. PART 1

As deputy mayor, Kistion oversaw all municipal issues in the city, for which he received the nickname “father of the municipal mafia.” Well, given all the consequences of the “housing and utilities reform” carried out in Vinnytsia under his leadership, this nickname can be taken literally, because in the end, Vinnytsia residents really did encounter a real mafia. It all started with the idea of ​​transferring the city’s housing stock (one and a half thousand multi-story buildings) to private housing offices for maintenance, whose services, of course, were much more expensive.

But the law prohibited doing this by force, only with the consent of the residents. And then in Vinnytsia, a mass creation of condominium associations began, headed by “house elders”. And to control them, a city Association of House Elders was created, headed by a certain Alexander Gavrilyuk – who suddenly turned out to be a classmate of the mayor Volodymyr Groysman. In the mid-90s, Gavrilyuk fled to Argentina (according to Skeleton.Infoin connection with gangster showdowns), in 2008 he returned to his homeland and was assigned by a “childhood friend” to public work. His task was to “persuade” the HOA to make the necessary decisions and to work especially with the “stubborn” and “obstinate”. At the same time, Gavrilyuk did not hide the fact that he regularly goes to the city executive committee to report on his work. How can it be understood that the head of a public organization of co-owners of residential buildings reports to the city authorities?

Alexander Gavrilyuk: knows how to explain things clearly

The result of this Association’s work was mass contracts between condominium associations and private housing offices, as well as a sharp increase in tariffs in the remaining state-owned ones – plus an increase in tariffs for water utility services and other utilities. It was useless to be indignant and complain, especially since a whole team was specifically engaged in suppressing the indignation of Vinnytsia residents: the same Gavrilyuk with his “assistants” of criminal appearance, as well as the deputy mayors Kistion and Andriy Reva.

In 2013, the “municipal mafia” went further: LLC “ZHEO” was created, which was given hundreds of apartment buildings to manage – allegedly with the consent of their “elders” who did not contradict Gavrilyuk’s people. At the same time, LLC “ZHEO” was simply a management company that did not provide any services itself, being only an intermediary hiring contractors. And for its mediation, it extorted a lot of money from Vinnytsia residents – and not only in the form of rent, but also in the form of many paid services, starting with accepting meters for verification (only acceptance, they were verified by other LLCs) and ending with issuing certificates and drawing up reports. People could only cry on the shoulders of journalists.

Online edition “Real”, June 2013

In the spring of 2010, Oleksandr Dombrovskyi was dismissed by Yanukovych, and Colonel General Mykola Dzhyga, who had once served as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs to Yuriy Kravchenko, soon became the new governor of the Vinnytsia region. His deputy became another representative of the “Vinnytsia people”, Roman Akselrod, who had previously managed housing and utilities issues at the regional state administration and had worked directly with Volodymyr Kistion for many years.

Roman Axelrod

They were connected not only by the “housing and utilities reforms”. The Vinnytsia municipal services also include public transport, in particular the Tram and Trolleybus Administration (TTA), which is also responsible for coordinating routes with private carriers (route taxis). And for many years, Akselrod’s daughter, Svetlana Romanovna, worked there, a very interesting and willful woman, very fond of being among “tough guys” of a certain type, which is why she has already come to the attention of journalists. However, dancing on a table in a pub is a personal matter, but selling routes through the firm “E.S.P.” is corruption and dishonest profit. Vladimir Kistion himself covered all this up – as the deputy mayor, overseeing the city’s public utilities.

Svetlana Akselrod works with “minibus drivers”

Kistion, according to data Skeleton.Infoquickly found a common language with Governor Dzhiga (although he governed the region for only two years, until the 2012 parliamentary elections), under whom the “retail outlets reform” that had begun under Dombrovsky was completed in Vinnytsia. And if the Groysman family fought against small markets at the city government level, forcing traders to move to large private markets and shopping centers (including those owned by the Groysmans), then Kistion participated in the redistribution of the network of pharmacies and kiosks, which was carried out by high-ranking officials from the regional state administration, who wanted to get their hands on this profitable business. In particular, they simply drove out of the city almost all the owners of newsstands in order to establish their own – for the sale of tobacco products and beer through them.

Together with the new governor-general, a new head of the regional UMVD came to Vinnytsia Oblast – Major General Valeriy Nonik. This man always stood out for some kind of absurdity and resembled a classic old-regime corrupt official of the first half of the 19th century, as if he had come from the pages of Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin. It is not surprising that he was immediately nicknamed “grandfather Nolik”. His greatest achievement in his new post was receiving a 4-room apartment in Vinnytsia, which he immediately privatized.

General Valery Nonik

Nevertheless, Nonik was repeatedly named as being involved in the creation of Vinnytsia “titushki” groups (from among athletes and criminal youth), as well as the private enterprise “Gepard-Zashchita Plus” directly connected to them. At the same time, Vladimir Kistion was called the curator of these “titushki” from the city government. Once he even lobbied for the allocation of 1.9 million hryvnias from the city budget to this private company – supposedly, it helps maintain order in the city!

Vladimir Kistion almost got burned by these titushki in 2014 – after all, they were the ones who guarded the Anti-Maidan in Mariinsky Park, breaking all the stereotypes that the titushki who supported Yanukovych came only from Donbass and Crimea. Not at all, and the Vinnytsia “lads” worked well together with the Gorlovka and Dnipropetrovsk ones. Kistion was saved by the fact that he had two patrons – Groysman and Dombrovsky, who in turn were under the “roof” of Petro Poroshenko. So the Vinnytsia “titushki” were first written off as the hapless General Nonik, and then their participation in the Kiev Anti-Maidan was completely forgotten. At the same time, the Vinnytsia Euromaidan was “extinguished”, whose activists in the summer of 2014 made a trip to the elite development areas of Vinnytsia, where the luxurious cottages of the “fathers of the city” are located, including the Kistionov house.

Vladimir Kistion. Lord of the Streams

What dividends did the Euromaidan bring to the “Vinnytsia clan”? In this case, we can paraphrase the famous saying and note that the “revolution of dignity” was carried out by heroes, and its fruits were enjoyed by “Vinnytsia people”. So, from the characters we mentioned (only from those mentioned), “the following” “came into the world”:

• Volodymyr Groysman is a former mayor of Vinnytsia, who on February 27, 2014 received the post of vice-premier and minister of regional development, construction and housing and communal services. He brought Kistion and Reva with him to the Cabinet. In November 2014, he was elected chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, and in April 2016, he was appointed prime minister of Ukraine.
• Oleksandr Dombrovskyi is a former mayor and governor of Vinnytsia. In 2014, he was appointed as an adviser to President Poroshenko, elected as a people’s deputy, and a member of the BPP faction. He was considered one of the contenders for the post of the new head of the Presidential Administration.
• Roman Akselrod – in 2015 he received the position of deputy head of Ukrposhta, then was an advisor to Vice Prime Minister Kistion, then returned to his old position as deputy head of the Vinnytsia Regional State Administration.
• Miroslav Prodan is the former chief tax officer of Vinnytsia; since 2016, he has been appointed acting head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine; after the arrest of Roman Nasirov, he has been performing his duties.
• Andriy Reva is a former deputy mayor of Vinnytsia for social issues and, since April 2016, the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine.
• Volodymyr Kistion is an inseparable follower of Volodymyr Groysman. In 2014-2015 he was a deputy in the Ministry of Regional Development and Housing and Public Utilities, in 2015 he was an adviser to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the first deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada apparatus, since April 15 – Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for ATO and occupied territories, then received control over energy issues (including nuclear), ecology and subsoil development.

In almost two years of his work as Deputy Prime Minister, Vladimir Kistion only once became the subject of a loud public scandal, and that was connected with his Vinnytsia past – this was the topic raised by journalists about his house (registered in the name of his son, on the driver’s plot).

Nothing more solid has been dug up on Kistion, which gives the impression that he is the least corrupt, almost the only honest member of the current government. But this impression is deceptive. For some strange reason, no one seems to notice the obvious: that the threads of the largest dubious scams and schemes, one way or another, lead to Vice Prime Minister Kistion.

For example, he is one of the “fathers” of the notorious Rotterdam formula, which for over a year has been synonymous in Ukraine with not just corruption and robbery, but with collusion between the current government and Donetsk oligarchs, in particular with Rinat Akhmetov. It is worth emphasizing that due to this formula, the cost of electricity generated by thermal power plants is significantly overstated: DTEK enterprises (Akhmetov) sell it in Ukraine at 1.64 hryvnia per kW, while in Donetsk, where the separatists don’t give a damn about this formula, it is only 42 kopecks. Moreover, it has already been criticized to smithereens by both NABU Director Artem Sytnyk and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, showing rare unanimity in this. So what? In October 2017, Kistion defended the Rotterdam formula, saying it did not violate Ukrainian law and that there was no alternative. Does he have an interest in this formula, or is he just defending the scheme created by his bosses Groysman and Poroshenko?

Let’s say more: under the influence of the Cabinet of Ministers, including Kistion personally, the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission planned for 2018 a reduction in the production of cheap electricity at state-owned nuclear power plants and an increase in the production of expensive electricity at Akhmetov’s thermal power plants. At the same time, the Rotterdam formula continues to work, and the declared cost of coal (and the electricity produced) will grow even more – along with the income of Akhmetov, as well as his coal partners. But this is not the only gift to Akhmetov that Kistion has prepared for him. On the recommendation of the Deputy Prime Minister, in 2018, Oschadbank will issue a loan of 2 billion hryvnia to the State Enterprise Energorynok, of which 1.48 billion will be transferred to DTEK to pay off certain debts. A similar operation was already carried out in 2017: then the state allocated 686 million, of which DTEK received 676 (almost all). Thus, Vladimir Kistion appears before us in the role of a caring uncle, feeding Akhmetov hundreds of millions of hryvnias – and even ruining Ukraine’s nuclear energy for his sake. If this is not corruption, then what is?

Volodymyr Kistion and Volodymyr Groysman

Next. As the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of energy and subsoil use, Volodymyr Kistion was directly involved in the fraudulent increase in gas tariffs in the spring of 2016 (by two times), which caused a rise in heating prices in Ukraine and a real social catastrophe. Why fraudulent? The real cost of Ukrainian gas in 2016 was 1,338 hryvnia: 606 hryvnia for production, 732 for storage and transportation, while Naftogaz received 219 hryvnia out of 732 hryvnia, and private regional gas companies 513 hryvnia. It is impossible to change this cost arbitrarily, because it is formed from real costs and salaries (even if inflated), therefore, in order to increase the selling price of gas, the Yatsenyuk government added 1,862 hryvnia in rent, duties and taxes to it – which went to the state treasury.

In the spring of 2016, one of the first decisions of the Groysman-Kistion government was to double the selling price of gas. This could have been done by increasing the tax burden (and the money would have gone to the treasury), but instead, Groysman and Kistion came up with an illegal scheme by which the cost of gas was doubled due to “capital investments in the development of fields.” These same “capital investments” were allegedly transferred to Ukrgazdobycha, and possibly also to private companies (Kolomoisky, Firtash, Avakov).

During this time, a huge sum should have accumulated – more than 70 billion hryvnia!

But the fate of this money remains unknown. Perhaps it was really spent on developing the deposits (about which there is no information). Or perhaps it was distributed among those who control Ukrgazdobycha and the rest of Naftogaz structures – that is, the presidential “family”, the oligarch Kolomoisky and the Continuum group, all competing with each other.

It is simply surprising that the fate of this money has not yet interested NABU, and the question of why and for what reason Ukrainians overpay for gas and heating four times (!) is not raised by activists. Maybe because they are being fed “cardboard dummies” to distract attention from real corruption schemes?

In the same way, Volodymyr Kistion can be asked many questions concerning the distribution of state funds allocated for the ATO, for the support of authorities and public organizations of the OA Crimea “in exile”, for the restoration of the infrastructure of the ATO zone (4 billion hryvnia in 2017 alone). There are also questions for him regarding the fate of the money allocated for the construction and repair of roads, as well as for the modernization of the Black Sea ports in the Odessa and Kherson regions. However, the Deputy Prime Minister answers the questions already asked in the spirit of the “Vinnytsia” people: the work is on schedule, the money is being used according to the estimate, do not panic! For example, Kistion was responsible for the request about the progress of the protracted reconstruction of the Odessa Sea Terminal building, raised in the fall of 2016 by the head of the Odessa Customs Yulia Marushevska. And what happened? This project is still at the stage of approval and preparatory work.

Can we believe that Vice Prime Minister Kistion, who is sitting on multi-billion dollar flows and schemes, has only 815 thousand hryvnias in savings, an old KrAZ and LuAZ, and rents a modest two-room apartment in Kyiv? Of course, he is only a “modest” performer working for the “family”, but still, he clearly overdid it with creating an image of a selfless person!

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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