BEGINNING: Vitaly Bogovin: agricultural raider at the head of the Zaporozhye region. PART 1
Vitaly Bogovin
How to become a “servant of the people”
Domestic businessmen have a tradition: as soon as they gain weight and acquire connections, they immediately go to power – at least to the level of local councils. Bogovin and Kovernik were very late with this. If you believe their biographies, then for the first time they went to the polls only in 2019, immediately aiming for the mandate of the people’s deputy.
At the same time, they apparently only had enough money for one of them: Vitaly Bogovin ran under the banner of “Servant of the People” in the 78th majoritarian district (Berdyansk), but Kovernik did not participate in the elections, although it was he who installed his companion as a candidate from the then mega-popular pro-presidential party. To do this, Kovernik had to become a sponsor of his old friend Mikhail Kryachko, who then headed the election headquarters of the Servant of the People in Zaporozhye. “A little” money – and the face of Vitaly Bogovin loomed on green billboards, as a “farmer who created his own farm.” How exactly he created it and why he transferred it to a Cypriot offshore company before the elections was, of course, not explained in Bogovin’s campaign leaflets.
Mikhail Kryachko
Mikhail Kryachko can be called a kind of Zaporozhye Levochkin. The career of this “young talent” began soon after graduating from university: in 2003-2011 he worked in the organizational departments of the Zaporozhye city and regional administrations, acquiring connections and becoming a friend of one governor or another. Who patronized him initially, who brought Kryachko to power, and then recommended him to successive heads of the region, remains his secret for now. But in recent years, Kryachko has been known as a member of the team of Boris Petrov (governor 2010-2011), Pavel Matvienko (chairman of the regional council in 2010-2013) and brothers Sergei and Vladimir Kaltsev – local businessmen and “deciders” (Sergei Kaltsev in 2012- m elected from the PR in the 75th majoritarian district). All of them at one time led the regional organization of the Party of Regions (Petrov was a member of the Party of Regions from the moment of its creation) and actually controlled the Zaporozhye “party of power” for several years. And then there was one more person on their team, the most famous Zaporozhye regionalist Vyacheslav Boguslavev, director of the Motor Sich corporation and one of the richest oligarchs in Ukraine (No. 25 on the list).
Kaltsev brothers
In 2011, Kryachko’s bureaucratic career was interrupted, and he became a “free entrepreneur,” participating in the business schemes of his influential friends. And since 2014, after the regionals lost their monopoly on power and control over flows in Zaporozhye, Kryachko became the director of the local office of the digital agency SMMSTUDIO. Yes, the same one belonging to Mikhail Fedorov, the future favorite of Vladimir Zelensky and Minister of Digital Information.
In 2018, a team of political strategists led by Razumkov began preparing their projects “Zelensky” and “Servant of the People” for the elections. The question arose, who to rely on in Zaporozhye? Who will be the sponsor, who will head the headquarters, who will select candidates for the parliamentary elections? The question was addressed, first of all, to local native Sergei Trofimov – then the producer of “95th Quarter”, now the first deputy head of the President’s Office. And it is he, first of all, who is responsible for the personnel scandals of the “servants of the people” in the Zaporozhye region.
Many people then wanted to try their luck in a new political project. Including former Zaporizhzhya regionals. After the second Maidan, Boguslaev went to the “neutral centrists” and sat in the Rada of the 8th convocation in the “Will of the People” faction, so as not to provoke new conflicts with Poroshenko, with whom he had been at enmity since 2015. Therefore, the owner of Motor Sich invested in Zelensky’s election campaign with the hope that the new president would at least not be his enemy.
The Matvienko-Petrov-Kaltsev group moved to the Opposition Bloc after 2014, and after its collapse in 2018, they decided to join the more promising OPZZH – especially since Medvedchuk himself made an offer to the Zaporozhye ex-regionals. But at the same time, they received an offer from Zelensky’s team, which they happily accepted. According to sources Skelet.InfoMedvedchuk was not against it and “blessed” them to help Zelensky’s election campaign, because he understood that Yuriy Boyko would not be able to become a serious opponent of Poroshenko. And so it turned out that at first it was the Kaltsev brothers who took charge of Zelensky’s election headquarters in the region.
But who led them to Zelensky? Oh, this is a very interesting story! Back in 2017, Vladimir Zelensky starred in commercials for the Golden Age jewelry company, becoming one of the faces of this company. Their cooperation was so close and long-lasting that “Kvartal-95” and “Golden Age” even created a joint music video “Kokhannya” – again, with Zelensky.
The co-owners of the Golden Age were then Zaporozhye businessmen Roman Petrenko and Dmitry Popov. The media once wrote that they began to have some kind of “graters” among themselves, but this could only be a cover for the reorganization of their extensive business, which included a network of jewelry companies (“Golden Age”, “Golden Country”, “Silver”) country”) and the pawnshop networks “Partner” and “Capital”. Now it seems to be divided between them, but journalists found several companies that still unite the business of Petrenko and Popov into one “jewelry and pawnshop empire.”
Roman Petrenko (left) and Dmitry Popov
By the way, in general, jewelry companies and pawnshops are connected with each other much more than you think. For example, what is bought from the former is then pawned and handed over to the latter, then the gold, often bypassing the state, goes to jewelry factories – the second episode of the 16th season of the popular American animated series “South Park” was even dedicated to this.
Well, here, pawnshops and jewelry stores are pulling off the most mind-blowing schemes among themselves! For one of these schemes, Roman Petrenko ended up in a pre-trial detention center in the annexed Crimea in 2015 – where he continued to develop his business and engage in scams. He served a year and somehow “excused himself”, he returned to Zaporozhye with his tail between his legs and, possibly, an assignment from the FSB.
And in 2018, Petrenko and Popov became sponsors of Zelensky’s election campaign. And when the question arose about the leadership of the regional headquarters, Petrenko suggested his business partner Vladimir Kaltsev, with whom they built the scandalous shopping center on place of Yalansky city park. It must be assumed that Boguslav, another Zaporozhye sponsor of Zelensky, also supported this candidacy in every possible way. Well, the Kaltsevs, as well as the owner of SMMSTUDIO, Mikhail Fedorov, who joined the team (his company participated in the promotion of advertising for the Golden Age), brought Mikhail Kryachko to the headquarters.
But the dominance of ex-regionals in Zelensky’s headquarters led to a scandal, as a result of which the Kaltsev brothers were removed from the leadership of the headquarters. They returned to the OPZZh, taking over its regional headquarters just in time for the start of the parliamentary election campaign (Vladimir Kaltsev became a people’s deputy in 2019 on the OPZZh list). But the leadership of Zelensky’s headquarters passed to… Kryachko. Because this shooter has already firmly positioned himself as “Fedorov’s man.” And Kryachko already brought in new sponsors – among whom was Vadim Kovernik, and redistributed candidates – one of whom was Vitaly Bogovin (in majority district No. 78).
Soon Kryachko once again demonstrated his ability to get away with it. He was convicted of actually merging the interests of Servant of the People in favor of OPZH. In particular, he placed little-known, politically weak candidates in majoritarian constituencies, who were a poor alternative to the ex-regionals. However, the scandal did not have any consequences for Kryachko, and he even received his main “prize” – the mandate of a people’s deputy on the list of “Servants of the People” (No. 61). Perhaps the election results played a role: in the region, Servant of the People doubled ahead of OPZZH (48% versus 21%), and the party’s popularity was so high that its little-known candidates took 7 out of 9 majoritarian mandates.
One of the two losing candidates from Servant of the People was Vitaly Bogovin, who lost to Sergei Ponomarev (OPZZH). He was not helped by zealous agitation, which, by the way, minors were illegally recruited. However, for some reason the journalists complained about this not to the prosecutor’s office, but… to the head of the party, Razumkov, who only promised to “sort it out.” But by that time, Bogovin had already become friends with Razumkov, so he didn’t even scold him.
Vitaly Bogovin and Dmitry Razumkov
Thus, the money contributed by Bogovin and Kovernik to Kryachko’s cash desk was wasted. Obviously, in making amends, Kryachko promised to take Bogovin into the “personnel reserve” and not forget about him at all. And, unlike some, he soon kept his promise, more than once.
Hand washes hand
Back in 2018, Bogovin and Kovernik got involved in a very bad criminal case about massive tax fraud. Their enterprises “Agro-Luch”, “TV Agrofudexport”, “Alonis Agro” and “Pridonetsky” participated in the fraudulent scheme, and the amount of illegal VAT refund amounted to 67,704,305 hryvnia! Bogovin managed to transfer the consideration of the case to the Goloseevsky Court of Kyiv, where it lasted until mid-2019 – and then happily died down.
parliamentary request to Kryach from Verlanov
At the beginning of 2020, Alonis Agro suddenly surfaced in parliamentary requests MIkhail Kryachko, together with other Bogovin companies. The People’s Deputy bombed the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Service with them, seeking their exclusion from the blacklists of risky taxpayers. And he succeeded:
At the same time, Kryachko and other “servants of the people” from the Zaporozhye region (Roman Sokha, Sergey Shtepa, Yevgeny Shevchenko) began a large-scale “artillery bombardment”, bombarding law enforcement agencies with requests to check the activities of the then Zaporozhye governor Vitaly Turinka (appointed in September 2019), accusing moreover in corruption. This was part of a large plan to change regional power, in which the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Trofimov, was involved. But whose initiative was this? Journalists believed that all this was a consequence of the enmity between the “jewelers” Petrenko and Popov. Allegedly, Petrenko, who was cleared from the “Servant of the People” at the beginning of 2019, began to take revenge on Popov, whose man Turinok was. That is, according to this theory, the new Zaporozhye governor Bogovin is Petrenko’s protégé.
However, this is only one version, and a rather weak one – since the feuds between Petrenko and Popov are most likely just a performance. But the fact that the “jewelers”, who decided to divide among themselves most of their common companies, could also put their trust in different groups of influence is quite real! According to sources Skelet.Infoin Zaporozhye there is a very complex struggle for power, in which there are a lot of participants – from local businessmen and petty scammers, to oligarchs and state-level politicians. For example, Medvedchuk is secretly involved in the game, whose goals, as always, are extremely difficult to predict. And it is likely that he is acting through the hands of Kryachko, who is a good organizer, and also habitually works on two “fronts” at once.
What is Vitaly Bogovin’s role in this game? As you might guess, he is just a pawn in the wrong hands, a temporary figure, the same “consumable material” as his predecessor Turinok. He took the post of governor only because someone needed to put their puppet there. Accordingly, how long he will remain on it depends on two factors: how diligently Bogovin will carry out the orders of his patrons, and how long these patrons will be able to influence the Office of the President. The key figures here are Kryachko and Trofimov, but there are other, more influential people behind them.
Well, Bogovin himself will probably use his term as governor to great advantage – expanding and increasing his agricultural holding, a share in which he temporarily transferred to his partner Kovernik and brother Evgeniy.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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