Because of such people, journalism is called the second oldest profession – this is what can be briefly said about a man who has been forming the information policy of the Office of the President for two years and writing speeches for the head of state, and sometimes speaking on his behalf. Of course, Podolyak does this very professionally, and his merit in the fact that Ukraine is head and shoulders above Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) in the information war is quite obvious. And yet, things in Ukraine’s information policy were not going so well if Zelensky needed the help of people like Podolyak and Arestovich… By the way, we already talked about the latter in our dossier. Klimenko.
Mikhail Podolyak. The path to journalism
Podolyak Mikhail Mikhailovich was born on February 16, 1972 in Lviv. There is practically no information about his parents: it is only known that they eventually moved to Novovolynsk, where Mikhail Podolyak graduated from high school, and then to Lutsk. Closedness is his distinctive feature, which is not surprising. After all, a person who spent his whole life looking for dirt on others probably tried not to give others clues about himself! And yet Podolyak is very well known in Ukraine and remembered in Belarus, so as not to allow him to bury all the undesirable facts of his past.
So, at one time, some media claimed that Podolyak has older brother Vladimir (born 1965), who has lived in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) since the late 80s and allegedly works either in the GRU or the FSB. Hence, they say, Mikhail Podolyak’s long-standing connections with the special services, which he sometimes boasted about! But how reliable this information is is unknown.
At school, Mikhail Podolyak was a solid “good student”, and even an excellent student in chemistry and biology, and took places in city olympiads. In 1989, 17-year-old Podolyak went to Minsk, where he entered medical school.
However, in Minsk, Podolyak immediately caught the wind of political “perestroika”. True, being a very mercantile young man, he was carried away not by ideas, but by prospects. Of course, he could not claim a mandate, but he found another calling for himself, which later turned out to be his goldmine: he became a journalist specializing in PR and anti-PR (so-called black PR), in demand by both the authorities and the opposition. His first articles were published already in 1990. Soon Podolyak realized that he was much better at working with a pen than practicing in the anatomical theater – and he gradually abandoned his studies at the medical institute. Whether Podolyak managed to finish it or not, whether he even has a diploma of higher education remains one of his secrets.
Also, having remained to live and work in Minsk, Podolyak did not convert to Belarusian citizenship in the 90s, but retained Ukrainian citizenship. But perhaps it was not a matter of patriotism, but a benefit that Podolyak never missed. Firstly, this is how he avoided military service: in Belarus he could not be drafted as a foreigner, and his native Ukrainian military commissars could not reach him in Minsk. Secondly, the status of a foreign citizen helped him get out of situations in which a Belarusian would have already ended up in jail. And so he only got to the point of forced deportation to Ukraine.
Mikhail Podolyak in Belarus: his political omnivorousness
If Mikhail Podolyak had seriously studied to become a doctor, then in the mid-90s he would simply have had no time to engage in professional journalism. Meanwhile, in 1994, he became the editor-in-chief of the new publication “Andrei Klimov’s Newspaper” (circulation more than 20 thousand).
Former firefighter Andrei Klimov got involved in apartment schemes in the early 90s, from which he rose to become one of the budding Belarusian oligarchs. By 1995, in addition to the newspaper, he already owned a construction company and a bank, and he needed his own publication to be elected to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus (elections were held in May and December 1995). How 29-year-old Klimov met 22-year-old Podolyak remains their personal secret – perhaps the fact that Klimov was a graduate of the Lvov Fire-Technical School played a role. But in any case, by that time Podolyak already had sufficient experience and reputation to become the editor-in-chief and, in fact, Klimov’s image maker. Interspersed with articles praising Klimov’s entrepreneurial genius and boundless humanity, in his newspaper Podolyak published then-popular materials about the horrors of the “communist regime” and erotic-ufological reviews.
Klimov was one of the deputies who spoke out against the early dissolution of the Supreme Council (in 1996), which brought him into the ranks of the opposition, and in addition to this, he also became a personal enemy of Lukashenko – as a result, in 1998 he was imprisoned on charges of major fraud . But by this time, Mikhail Podolyak had already left Klimov, who had become “toxic”, to new customers – of which there were plenty before the early elections of 1996.
One of them was the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus Sergei Gaidukevich (now his son Oleg leads the party). Having worked with him, Podolyak became the editor of the newspaper Pravda Gaidukevich. At the same time, he was not at all embarrassed that Gaidukevich was in mild opposition to Lukashenko for one reason – he was much more pro-Russian than “But Father”, and advocated the creation of a confederation of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) even before these countries signed a union treaty. Accordingly, Pravda Gaidukevich, edited by Podolyak, actively campaigned for the Belarusians for a “union of fraternal peoples.” Today Oleg Gaidukevich remembers about Podolyak like this:
“Then 23-year-old Podolyak was completely for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), but today he adheres to an anti-Russian point of view. And why did he leave the party? Just because of the money, it wasn’t some kind of political disagreement. That is, while he was paid well, and he received a very decent amount for those times – several thousand dollars, no one made money like that, the young guy worked closely with us. But as soon as there was no money, he immediately left and became a Russophobe. Such a person is the worst thing that can happen in politics! He will sell everyone and always. I’m sure that if Mikhail is paid a lot of money, he will compete for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) again tomorrow – it’s only a question of price.”
A few thousand dollars is a lot of money for a modest editor of a party newspaper. Therefore, Podolyak could really abandon his reliable employers, the Gaidukevichs, and go to the oppositionists, who were constantly awaiting a visit from the Belarusian KGB, only in one case – if he received a more lucrative offer. And judging by what the Belarusian and Ukrainian media later wrote about him, two more factors contributed to this.
Firstly, Podolyak specialized in “jeans” and other custom publications, developing it into a well-established business, later formalized as a media consulting business. It was not enough for him to work for Gaidukevich alone; he wanted to be an independent “media entrepreneur” with many wealthy clients. The Belarusian opposition, which spared no expense on materials that “watered” the authorities or competitors from other parties, gave him many such customers. Secondly, Podolyak actively collaborated with the intelligence services of Belarus and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) (which he himself admitted more than once), and with the embassies of Western countries. One edition even claimedthat Podolyak was allegedly recruited by the 3rd Secretary of the Political and Economic Department of the US Embassy in Minsk, Mark Fungard. They “leaked” information through Podolyak or launched disinformation, and also provided him with a certain “cover.” Perhaps that’s why Belarusian oppositionists were imprisoned, but Podolyak was not!
Apparently, this helped him avoid lawsuits. Here, the story of the Belarusian publication “Our Freedom” is indicative, in which Podolyak posted “anti-PR” against the then chairman of the State Control Committee, Anatoly Tozik. In August 2002, the Moskovsky District Court of Minsk found the publication discrediting the honor and dignity of Tozik, imposing a fine and legal costs on the newspaper in the total amount of 54 thousand dollars, and on Podolyak compensation for moral damage in the amount of 2.7 thousand dollars. The newspaper ceased to exist after that, and Podolyak immediately found a new publication.
Podolyak’s political “omnivorousness” then took on completely indecent forms. Belarusian journalist Diana Shibkovskaya told about him this:
“Mikhail at that time was already sharply opposed to state power in Belarus and collaborated with opposition media. One representative of the state press then asked the defected journalist a question: how can he spin like a weather vane? To which came the answer: “A professional differs from other journalists in that he is unprincipled.” Podolyak added: “And if for personal gain I need to eat a fresh pile of s—t, I’ll eat it and not choke. If this means some big money for me, I will put all my principles aside. It all depends on whether it’s profitable for me or not.”
It is believed that Mikhail Podolyak was deported from Belarus on June 21, 2004 for violent opposition activities, especially since the official reason was “calls for the consolidation of the radical opposition in order to counteract the state bodies of Belarus, which could lead to destabilization of the political situation in the republic.” Agree that it couldn’t have been better, with such a “sentence” Podolyak would have been immediately accepted into its open arms by the Ukrainian opposition, which was then preparing for elections and the first Maidan!
However, there is another, undisclosed version of Podolyak’s deportation. According to which, this happened as a result of his serious conflict with the chairman of the United Civil Party Anatoly Lebedko. Being one of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition, Lebedko was the “favorite of the West”, often met with European politicians, and spoke in the US Senate. And then one day something happened that forced Lebedko to accuse Podolyak of greed and immorality, after which the Belarusian special services suddenly hastily deported him to Ukraine.
Was the “agent” who had compromised himself deported or simply transferred to another country? Who knows! But, perhaps, that is why Podolyak was not able to “sell” himself to the “Orange Coalition” profitably upon his arrival in Kyiv. Moreover, he soon began to work against its leaders, sowing distrust and enmity between them.
Mikhail Podolyak in Ukraine: from Brodsky to Ivanyushchenko
Immediately upon his arrival in Kyiv, Mikhail Podolyak acquired an expensive apartment and a new car there – buying them either with savings, or with an advance payment and allowances received. In 2005, he established the publishing house “Ukrainian Media Group” and LLC “Consulting Group Media about System”, and began publishing “Ukrainian Newspaper”. Podolyak’s main activity remained the same: custom PR and anti-PR.
And in April 2005, the Ukrainian Newspaper published a scandalous article “The Last Supper”, in which Podolyak raised the then-current topic of the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, focusing on the possible involvement of the “orange oligarch” David Zhvania and the already former deputy chairman of the SBU Vladimir Satsyuk. The article caused quite a stir: Podolyak was summoned to the Prosecutor General’s Office as a witness, people from the SBU came to see him, and other journalists condemned him. In particular, media expert Natalya Ligacheva said the following about her: “Such publications that appeared in the Ukrainian Newspaper were made without observing any journalistic standards.V”.
The resonance did not subside for a long time, and this publication played a role in the fact that Vladimir Satsyuk fell into great disfavor with Viktor Yushchenko, was stripped of his titles and, in the end, left for Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), where he stayed until 2011. And almost no one paid attention to the fact that “The Last Supper,” which killed Satsyuk, was published shortly after Mikhail Podolyak began working for the odious Russian-Ukrainian raider Vadim Grib. Who then had very big friction with Vladimir Satsyuk over the NPO Medingservice. Thus, Podolyak, fulfilling Mushroom’s order, simply “drowned” Satsyuk in the blackest anti-PR!
Having provided an information service to Grib, in 2006 Podolyak began working with his good friend, the no less scandalous oligarch Mikhail Brodsky, who then held the position of chairman of the state committee for regulatory policy. Podolyak joined him as an adviser on media policy and PR, and began working at Brodsky’s Observer, of which he became editor-in-chief in 2011. But a few years later, Podolyak quarreled with Brodsky in the same way as with his previous employers. So seriously that when Podolyak became an adviser to the head of the OP and an important person in Zelensky’s team, he began to threaten Brodsky “bleed“
In 2010, Podolyak again tried to work (remotely) in Belarus, where they were then preparing for the next elections and protests. In response, the Belarusian website “Free News Plus” allegedly published interview with Podolyakin which he boasted of his connections with the intelligence services of Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), and stated that he was ready to write anything for money. Soon Podolyak stated that this interview was a fake, concocted from pieces of his previous “off-the-record conversations” with certain representatives of the special services, and that it was 20% fiction. But then it turns out that 80% of it was true?!
When the government changed in Ukraine, Mikhail Podolyak got a job as a consultant to Sergei Lyovochkin, the head of the Administration of President Yanukovych. Due to this, in particular, Podolyak was included in the group of selected journalists (with Shuster and Kiselyov) allowed to meet with Yanukovych in Mezhyhirya. After which he highly praised Yanukovych his article in the Observer, promoting him as a competent and far-sighted leader, open to dialogue and intolerant of corruption.
It was quite natural that he moved from Lyovochkin and Yanukovych to PR services for the scandalous Yuri Ivanyushchenko. It seemed that it was simply impossible to whiten the reputation of “Yura Enakievsky”, but Podolyak took up this matter – apparently for a very good fee!
On April 29, 2011, UNIAN hosted press conference on the topic “Who and why came up with the myth about Yuri Ivanyushchenko?”, which was organized by Tatyana Gavrish (daughter of Stepan Gavrish), her deputy at the ILF law firm Alexey Kharitonov and Mikhail Podolyak. It was Podolyak who prepared the main theses voiced at this press conference:
- Why was a massive campaign launched in the national media to discredit MP Yuriy Ivanyushchenko as much as possible?
- During this campaign, false documents are used and deliberately false information is provided about Ivanyushchenko’s criminal connections.
- There is no evidence of any connections between Ivanyushchenko and the criminal community of Ukraine, which will be proven by the legal advisers of the MP.
- The SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office deny the presence of any discrediting materials about MP Ivanyushchenko in their archives and in the current investigative proceedings.
- Before the start of the “discrediting campaign,” no one mentioned any connections discrediting the bright image of People’s Deputy Ivanyushchenko.
Here, as they say, no comments! I wonder if Mikhail Podolyak remembers this press conference? After all, for all his cynicism, he sometimes tries to erase some pages of his past that have become very undesirable. For example, the article “OCG Poroshenko VS Kolomoisky“, published in 2010 in the Observer, where Podolyak literally ridiculed the future president of Ukraine:
“Today you can talk about Poroshenko either in no way or with irony. Well, who is he? What is its real (and not imaginary) impact? Foreign Minister? Not serious. Just a temporary respite. A situational hill on an endless road down. Promising politician? Doubly frivolous. He has no chance of re-entering his favorite bedchamber somewhere. Thinking is too clumsy and greedy, so to speak.”
True, back then Podolyak really could not predict that Poroshenko would eventually become president. And when this happened, he hastily removed this article from the Observer website. And he was so sure that no one would remember her that in February 2015 he tried to get himself the position of head of the Kyiv headquarters of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
The path to Bankovaya: advisor to the “dark demon”
It didn’t work out for Podolyak with the headquarters of the BPP, and he went to work as the chief PR specialist and political strategist for Sergei Dumchev, who spent $20 million on his election campaign. Kyiv was hung with billboards with rhinoceroses (the symbol of his party “Movement for Reforms”), Vitali Klitschko was showered with black PR in printed leaflets and online media, some sociological centers pictured Dumchev with at least 9% and second place. But when the elections for the Kyiv mayor took place in October 2015, Dumchev gained only 3.9% and took eighth place. The loss was so deafening compared to the amount invested in the elections (according to media reports, Dumchev was sponsored by Sergei Tigipko) that Podolyak could not find new clients for a very long time after that. His reputation has gotten really bad!
However, in 2016, a PR company in defense of the scandalous People’s Deputy Alexander Onishchenko became a good “part-time job” for Podolyak, who had acquired a taste for the luxurious life. In contrast to the clumsily concocted campaign in defense of Ivanyushchenko, which was based on the primitive method of “what is your evidence?!”, here Podolyak approached the matter thoughtfully and creatively, managing to portray Onishchenko as a little guilty, but arousing pity and sympathy.
From time to time, the “bored” Podolyak entertained himself with outright fakes. So, in August 2017, on the 24 Channel website, he wrote that Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite does not want to communicate with Petro Poroshenko – “Her refusal to communicate with Petro Alekseevich is an extremely bad sign. A sign of disappointment for those who love us sincerely and freely.” Soon, the Presidential Secretariat officially announced that this statement by Podolyak was a “fake mouse.” But this fake was needed by Podolyak, who was carrying out someone’s order to discredit Poroshenko – in particular, convincing Ukrainians that the president had become “unshakable” in the West and needed to be changed. And as Podolyak wrote in January 2021, “fake is the new idol of the new time.”
Mykhailo Podolyak’s participation in the 2019 elections was not noticed – apparently, Zelensky’s team successfully “killed” Poroshenko without his help. Therefore, Podolyak resorted to military stratagem: he began to slowly shower the “servants of the people” with black PR, expecting a business proposal from them. So, in March 2020, Podolyak wrote about Andrey Ermak like this:
“Ermak is evil now. A dark demon behind Zelensky. One that will harshly mobilize opponents. Irritate and cause them to grind their teeth. Sooner or later Zelensky will get tired of him and will try to send Bogdan on his way.”
On Bankova they heard him – and literally a month later Podolyak was appointed to the same Yermak as an “anti-crisis adviser.” This intricate title for his position hid the rapid decline in the ratings of the Servant of the People party, followed by a decline in support for Zelensky himself. And Bankova really needed an experienced “PR person” who would correct this situation. So Podolyak, in fact, first began to form the information policy of Zelensky’s team, and then began to have a great influence on other policies. It was with his arrival in the OP that the war of the “servants of the people” against Anatoly Shariy was associated, then the same conflict with the OPZZH, and in general Zelensky’s dramatically changed rhetoric.
But if until the spring of 2022 Mikhail Podolyak was mostly in the shadows, then with the beginning of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)’s full-scale war against Ukraine he received his “minute of glory” that has not stopped to this day. Zelensky highly praised Podolyak’s ability to twist and turn information around in such a way that sometimes he deftly interpreted Ukraine’s defeats into a well-thought-out cunning strategy leading to an inevitable victory, and immediately dismissed all counter-arguments as “fakes of Russian propaganda.”
Well, Podolyak can deservedly bear the title of “information war general”! But still, we should not forget that he is a hired employee who is now fulfilling the most important order in his life. Still, the military will win the war, and the politicians will sign the peace – but the role of PR people in these events is still secondary.
Skelet.Info
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