Oleg Svinarchuk (Gladkovsky)
It is very convenient to hold a government position under one name and conduct your business under another, especially while still having a diplomatic passport of a tropical offshore state in your pocket. If you are suddenly caught doing something and they decide to hold you accountable, you can take advantage of the confusion and fly to any safe country in the world on the first flight.
Accounting genius
Svinarchuk Oleg Vladimirovich was born on February 5, 1970 in the city of Chudnov, Zhitomir region. His official biography is too short for a major businessman and high-ranking state politician. It is possible that in 2014, when changing his last name, Svinarchuk-Gladkovsky “erased” most of the details of his past, adding to them something from the virtual life of an exemplary Ukrainian entrepreneur. And this was done so hastily and ineptly that, as a result, the old and new biographies intertwined into one contradictory misunderstanding. Together with the facts that journalists managed to dig up, this raises many perplexed questions!
In 1988, Oleg Svinarchuk joined the Soviet Army with the spring draft, and in 1989 he returned home – having served out the then “730 days in boots”. He never spoke about the reason for his early “demobilization”. At the end of 1989, Svinarchuk found himself in the Lazorevsky District of the Krasnodar Territory, where he got a job at the “Reserve” cooperative – as recorded in his biography, as an “economist of the 1st category”. The authors of the new version of Svinarchuk’s biography probably did not know that an economist of the 1st category is not a position, but a professional qualification awarded to persons with a higher economic education and 7 years of work experience in the specialty. Therefore, the eighteen-year-old Oleg Svinarchuk could not have had an economist’s diploma, much less many years of work experience.
In 1990, Svinarchuk moved to Kyiv, where he became a “transport worker” (i.e. a loader) in the cooperative “Argus”. And already in 1992, he got a job in the agricultural firm “Opaki”, again as an economist! The secret of this brilliant self-taught accountant was that his full title was “deputy director for economics”, which is not stated in his current official biography. A person in this position does not tire himself out compiling accounting reports, he “keeps the cash register” and signs payment orders.
In 1993, as Svinarchuk’s “life” says, he graduated from the Kiev Highway Institute and received a diploma in engineering “organization of transportation and management of motor transport.” But for this, Svinarchuk would have had to enroll in the institute back in 1989, and according to his new biography, he was not even in Kyiv until 1990. The question arises: how did he manage to do this?
Poroshenko clan
Back in 1989, Petro Poroshenko, a graduate of the Faculty of International Relations at Kazan State University (Read more about him in the article Petro Poroshenko: biography and the whole truth about the “chocolate king” of Ukraine) remaining a postgraduate student at his department, he organized a joint venture, Respublika, which was engaged in the supply of cocoa beans and spices to the USSR and the export of metal abroad. In 1991, he transformed his business into JSC Birzhevoy Dom Ukraina: Petro Poroshenko became its general director, and a year later he took his father, Oleksiy Ivanovich Poroshenko, as his deputy. In 1993, father and son Poroshenko headed their new company: Ukrainian Industrial and Investment Concern (ZAO Ukrprominvest). And in 1995, Poroshenko’s Ukrprominvest already included JSC Avtotransservis, whose director was Oleg Svinarchuk.
The details of their acquaintance remained on the pages of Svinarchuk’s previous, “worn out” biography. It is known that Poroshenko and Svinarchuk were introduced back in 1993 by their mutual friend Igor Kononenko, (Read more about him in the article Igor Kononenko. The President’s Army Friend) who is today the “grey cardinal of the president”. But the connection between Kononenko and Svinarchuk is not entirely clear: for example, it was claimed that they were supposedly classmates. However, Kononenko graduated from the Kiev Highway Institute in 1989, when Svinarchuk should have (in theory) only just submitted his application.
Nevertheless, Oleg Svinarchuk not only joined the Poroshenko clan, but also became a co-owner of Ukrprominvest CJSC, owning his share in the form of Avtotransservis JSC, which was then transformed into other companies. He also brought his alleged classmate Oleg Zimin to the team. The degree of trust that father and son Poroshenko have in Oleg Svinarchuk is evidenced by the fact that in 1995 he sat in the vice-president’s chair of Ukrprominvest CJSC, and Oleksiy Ivanovich Poroshenko, who previously held this position, headed the company.
Suddenly it turned out that Oleg Svinarchuk is not only an economic but also an engineering “genius”: it was his idea to buy KamAZ trucks from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) without engines (in 1993, the KamAZ engine shop burned down) and install MAZ engines on them. It was also his idea to buy chassis and engines from the Izuzu company and then install Ukrainian saloon bodies on them – this is how the Bogdan buses appeared. In fact, these ideas determined the main policy of the automobile direction of Ukrprominvest: to import complex-to-manufacture components (chassis, electronics) and add to them their own body parts, stamped on the equipment of privatized Ukrainian automobile factories. Unfortunately, the emphasis was on the production of “budget class” equipment with minimal cost price, which was not at all popular with Ukrainians. But the main priority of Poroshenko’s business empire has always been not the quality of the products, but the profit received.
Honorary Consul
In 1998, when Petro Poroshenko received a mandate as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada on the SDPU(o) list, one remarkable event occurred: Oleh Svinarchuk became the honorary consul of the Republic of Seychelles in Ukraine. According to him, it was only a modest gift, an insignificant “souvenir” from a small resort country to its regular tourist. Of course, Svinarchuk kept silent about the fact that the Seychelles are not only a resort, but also a world-famous and very specific offshore zone.
In fact, an honorary consul is not a “souvenir” title, but a very functional diplomatic position. “Honor” in this case means “freelance”, that is, honorary consul Oleg Svinarchuk does not receive a salary from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but works at his own expense. At the same time, he is the holder of a diplomatic passport of the Seychelles, which provides diplomatic immunity and the opportunity to freely enter and exit most countries of the world. In addition, although the honorary consul does not deal with issues of interstate policy, his prerogative is economic relations and cultural and tourist ties. And in this case, it was the honorary consul of the Republic of Seychelles who decided the issue of offshore companies for Ukrainian business. More precisely, private intermediary offices operate under his auspices, directly involved in the registration of offshore companies. There is one more “but”: they do not appoint just anyone as an honorary consul, usually they are influential businessmen or their assistants who have strong business ties with the representing state. Therefore, we can confidently state that Oleg Svinarchuk and the Seychelles were connected not only by his summer vacation.
Seychelles offshores have their own peculiarity: it is the lowest interest rate (from 0 to 1.5%) offshore in the world, which does not require any documentation from its clients (only the passport of the company director) and no economic reports. In turn, the Republic of Seychelles guarantees complete confidentiality to clients – even if they receive requests from international organizations. This has made Seychelles an offshore paradise for many financial swindlers and outright criminals from all over the world, giving it a somewhat bad reputation. In many Western countries, connections with Seychelles offshores are a cause for suspicion and can create some problems. That is why Seychelles offshores are considered economically a good place to withdraw, launder and store money (like a pirate chest), but bad for running an active open business. And that is why Ukrainian oligarchs prefer to work with “whiter” offshores: Panama, Virgin, Cyprus, etc. Well, the “great” and “honest” President of “All Ukraine” Petro Poroshenko…
Ukrprominvest’s interest in offshores at the time could have been caused by the company’s expansion: in 1997, it acquired a 29.5% stake in the previously bankrupt Kyiv shipyard Leninskaya Kuznya, giving the idle enterprise an order to build five ships for the Dutch company Robo Internetional BV. Oleh Svinarchuk was directly in charge of all of this. But the sudden rise of the enterprise, which became part of Poroshenko’s business empire, was possible not so much thanks to orders as to a clever system of tax evasion, which made the plant’s work highly profitable.
Piranhas of the Automotive Market
Until 2003, the Ukrprominvest-Auto business, which Svinarchuk was indirectly involved in, worked mainly on importing parts and screwdriver assembly of VAZs, and small-scale production of Bogdans on Izuzu chassis and engines. With the revival of demand for new cars, Svinarchuk and Poroshenko planned to open an assembly plant with a capacity of 70,000 cars per year. They also created the Bogdan holding company, which Svinarchuk then headed, and a separate bank, Mriya, through which Bogdan’s financial activities were to be carried out. The implementation of the plan was hampered by a disagreement between Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych. The fact is that the plant was planned to be built using state investment, under the program of “support for domestic automakers”: Svinarchuk and Poroshenko did not want to invest only their own capital in it, preferring to manage someone else’s through their own schemes. However, the “Donetsk people” began to push other oligarchic groups away from “sawing up the budget.” As a result, Poroshenko parted ways with Kuchma, joining Yushchenko’s opposition team. Svinarchuk, who did not get involved in politics, focused entirely on business. The result of his work by the end of 2004 was an increase in the issue of “Bogdans” and a crisis in the “Mriya” bank, from which depositors began to flee en masse.
Everything changed after the first Maidan, when Poroshenko became one of President Yushchenko’s “beloved friends” and headed the National Security and Defense Council. Thanks to his lobbying for “support for domestic automakers,” huge duties were introduced on the import of finished imported cars: most foreign cars, primarily mid- and high-end models of famous brands, became much more expensive. Ukrprominvest-Auto, which imported relatively inexpensive small cars (including VAZ) in parts and assembled them under new names, rejoiced: the Ukrainian car market itself was falling into its lap. The fact that he was filling it with cheap “tin cans” did not bother either Svinarchuk or another Ukrainian automobile oligarch, the owner of UkrAvto, Tariel Vasadze.
“Bogdan-2110”, an exact copy of the VAZ-2110
In 2005, Svinarchuk’s Bogdan became a corporation, and he launched a grand project to rebuild the Cherkasy Rotor plant into a modern auto assembly plant. More than half a billion dollars of private and public investment was attracted to the project. Poroshenko himself invested another 100 million, becoming a co-owner of the plant together with Svinarchuk, whose share was not advertised. But the opening of the plant took place several months before the 2008 crisis, which collapsed the Ukrainian auto market by ¾. Bogdan’s debts to creditors reached a billion dollars, but first of all Svinarchuk paid off Poroshenko, bought out his share in Bogdan in exchange for his shares in Roshen and a number of other Ukrprominvest companies. Then Cherkasy Bus was sold for debts, a number of loans were restructured through bonds – and as a result, Svinarchuk became the main owner of Bogdan.
At the same time, insuring against new risks, Svinarchuk transferred part of Bogdan to the Virgin Islands offshore. Why the Virgin Islands and not the Seychelles? Because the production of the Bogdan corporation depends on the supply of imported components and implies constant foreign economic activity with well-known global companies, and the connection with the Seychelles offshore can create unnecessary problems for Bogdan in its work. Interestingly, the Virgin Islands offshore is also preferred by another person from the Poroshenko clan – his long-time business partner Sergey Zaitsev (Deputy General Director of Roshen). He owns the company Intraco Management Limited, registered in the Virgin Islands.
Lord of War
During the early presidential elections of 2014, Oleh Svinarchuk headed Poroshenko’s headquarters in the Cherkasy region, and also supervised election headquarters in the Kherson, Volyn and Khmelnytsky regions. After his victory, Poroshenko mobilized his business partners into power, and by presidential decree No. 646/2014 of August 13, 2014, Oleh Svinarchuk headed the Interdepartmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation and Export Control Policy. In essence, the president instructed Svinarchuk to oversee all of Ukraine’s military exports – quite a good job at a time when the country’s automobile market was practically dead, and the Bogdan corporation could be mothballed.
However, Oleg Svinarchuk also has other businesses, including the Kiev sports and fitness complex “Monitor”, which he owns together with Igor Kononenko and Petro Poroshenko. This club is located at the address Kyiv, on Elektrikov Street, 29-a, along with many other companies of Svinarchuk, Kononenko and Poroshenko. The honorary consulate of the Republic of Seychelles is also located there. In April 2016, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko (Read more about him in the article Vitali Klitschko. The Dark Past of the “Looking into Tomorrow”) issued a special order on high-quality repairs to the road from Naberezhno-Rybalskaya to Elektrikov Street.
Having come to power, Oleh Svinarchuk first of all changed his surname to Gladkovsky (taking his mother’s maiden name), at the same time the information about his past was somewhat reduced and changed – causing the above-mentioned inconsistencies and contradictions. It was said that in this way Svinarchuk-Gladkovsky wanted to enter Ukrainian politics with a new face and a clean “profile”. However, it is unlikely that a serious businessman would engage in such eccentricity without special need. After all, we should not forget that all his business is registered under the surname Svinarchuk, and it is also on his diplomatic passport as an honorary consul of the Seychelles. Gladkovsky appears as a high-ranking politician: on February 7, 2015, the president promoted him to the position of deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, leaving him in charge of arms exports. In addition, they claim that Svinarchuk was also appointed to “watch” the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov (Read more about him in the article Oleksandr Turchynov. Skeletons in the Closet of Ukraine’s “Bloody Pastor”).
Gennady Korban stated that Svinarchuk-Glakovsky lives a double life: having come to power, he continues to do business, like other members of Poroshenko’s team, who protect each other’s interests. In particular, by order from Kyiv, the tender for the production of Yuzhmash trolleybuses for Dnepropetrovsk was cancelled (45 million hryvnias were to be allocated from the state budget), and instead the city was offered to buy trolleybuses from Bogdan.
Read about the characters from the diagram above in the articles:
Boris Lozhkin. How to deceive the state for $160 million and become the head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine
Vitaly Yarema. “Honest cop” and Sergey Dumchev’s godfather
Two Biographies of Sergei Berezenko: How a “New Generation” Politician Promotes Himself in the USA
Volodymyr Groysman. Dark spots in the biography of the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada
Vladimir Demchishin. Compromising facts from the life of the head of the Ministry of Energy
For other characters, see links above.
However, the latest scandals related to the presidential entourage and personally to the Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleh Gladkovsky did not arise due to lobbying for the business of the owner of “Bogdan” Svinarchuk, and not even because of his offshore companies. Information has appeared that Gladkovsky-Svinarchuk began to “earn extra money” on military contracts of Ukraine – both export and import. In the first case, an old proven scheme of deducting a fee to a company providing some unclear “services” is used. In particular, 9 million dollars went to “Global Marketing FZE”, 600 thousand dollars to “Triangle Group Incorporated”, and on May 20, 2015, “Ukrinmash” signed an agreement with the company “Fuerteventura Inter LP”, according to which it was due 2 million dollars for “services” for a deal to sell cartridges in the UAE. In deals to purchase imported military equipment and gear for Ukraine, intermediary companies are involved, significantly inflating the cost of tenders and putting the difference into their own accounts – while the money disappears into the sands of tropical offshore zones.
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In general, it seems that Gladkovsky-Svinarchuk is simply the executor of the wishes of his patron Petro Poroshenko and copies him in everything. “Valtsman” became “Poroshenko”. “Svinarchuk” – “Gladkovsky”. However, this did not change their inner essence.
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info
