Alexander Smirnov: “watchers” of Ukrainian ports. PART 1

It seems that there is no longer a single profitable sector of the economy left in Ukraine, no matter where the greedy hand of Rinat Akhmetov can reach. Metallurgy, coal industry, energy, freight transportation – he squeezes his profit out of everything. And, of course, Ukrainian ports could not remain without the attention of the export-oriented oligarch. Although they still remain state-owned enterprises, Akhmetov exercises control over them through his “supervisor” of the ports, Alexander Smirnov, who places trusted people in key leadership positions. True, many of them quickly ended their careers with high-profile corruption scandals. Therefore, Smirnov constantly has to look for a replacement for them…

Alexander Smirnov. Or How coke was stolen

Alexander Aleksandrovich Smirnov, who heads the Ukrainian Portinvest LLC, is the full namesake of the working deputy director of the FSUE Rosmorport. Two San Sanych Smirnovs, and both “heads of ports”, only in different countries! They are even almost the same age: Russian Smirnov was born in 1958, and our Ukrainian one was born somewhere in the early 60s, judging by his short biography. For some reason, the permanent head of Portinvest did not want to publish either the date and place of his birth, or more detailed information about his life and activities in the 80s and 90s.

It is known that in 1986 he graduated from the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute, receiving a diploma in mining engineering. The young specialist’s first place of work is not indicated in his biography, but it could have been the Zhdanovskaya mine (in the town of Zhdanovsk, Donetsk region). This bold assumption is based on the fact that Alexander Smirnov devoted at least ten years of his work history, during which his career growth occurred, to working for Viktor Nusenkis, who in the second half of the 80s was the director of Zhdanovskaya, turning it into the start-up of his business . Nusenkins is an undeservedly forgotten legend of Ukrainian corruption; he was running large-scale shady schemes back when Rinat Akhmetov was an errand boy for gambler Akhat Bragin. And it is possible that one of his own “messengers” was the young mining engineer Alexander Smirnov.

Victor Nusenkis

Was Smirnov involved in Nusenkis’s early business projects, such as the Gornyak joint venture and the Don MPO, Skelet.Info I haven’t found out yet. Also unknown are the details of his relationship with Nusenkis’s main business partners: the then regional prosecutor Gennady Vasilyev and the deputy head of the Regional State Administration Vladimir Logvinenko. His clear connection with Nusenkis can be traced back to the 90s, when Smirnov, according to his biography, appeared at the Makeevka Coke and Chemical Plant (CCP). He appeared precisely when Nusenkins decided to take control of him and use him in dirty schemes that brought him great profits, the power of the world, and the enterprise continuous losses. And do you know who Alexander Smirnov worked at the Makeevsky Coke Plant? Director of Commercial and Financial Affairs! That is, he directly managed the schemes that ultimately brought the company to bankruptcy and reorganization.

More specifically: in the late 90s, Radonkoks LLC appeared at the Makeyevka Coke Plant, which leased its production workshops. The founders of Radonkoks were the Donetsk corporation Radon Holding and the Virginia company RTS Trading Ltd, controlled by Vladimir Skubenko. At that time, Skubenko’s business was developing rapidly, but was chaotic: he simply seized coal and coke-chemical assets. Did he need the Makeevka Coke Plant? It is unknown, but Nusenkis certainly needed the plant, since Energia had already taken control of Donetskstal, which was associated with it. Therefore, how Skubenko got there remains unclear. But it is known that Alexander Smirnov, who is also the commercial director of the KHZ, became the director of Radonkoks.

Vladimir Skubenko

Alexander Smirnov managed the finances of the KHZ so “skillfully” that by 2002 this state-owned enterprise went bankrupt – and was declared bankrupt by the claim of Radon Holding. The reorganization began, and the State Property Fund appointed its financial director Smirnov as chairman of the board of the Makeyevka Coke Plant – who brought the plant to ruins! But then it was more interesting: most of the KHZ debts fell on Nusenkis’s Energia Corporation. Radon-Holding suddenly left the game altogether, Radonkoks also disappeared, and the plant, managed by Smirnov, fell at the feet of the main holder of its debts – Donetskstal CJSC, which belonged to Nusenkis’s Energia Corporation. The oligarch created the Makeevsky Koksokhim CJSC, to which, through the efforts of Smirnov, all the production capacities of the Coke Chemical Plant were transferred (only a few utility facilities were left to the state-owned OJSC). They sold it for only 29 million hryvnia – despite the fact that the enterprise’s annual income was five times more!

Having handed over the plant to Nusenkis (as well as Vasiliev and Logvinenko), Smirnov received a position in the logistics directorate of Donetskstal CJSC. Moreover, he was soon sent on a very important business trip to Latvia. From which we can conclude that the connection between Smirnov and Nusenkis began much earlier than the period 2002-2004, that they knew each other for a very long time, and in the story of the actual theft of the Makeevsky Coke Plant from the state, Smirnov worked for his old boss.

Latvian terminal

Having barely finished with the Makeevsky Coke Plant, Smirnov left as part of a team of Nusenkis’s most trusted people for “brotherly” Latvia to oversee the “Orthodox oligarch’s” new project: a coal terminal in the port of Ventspils. It was there that Smirnov mastered a new direction for himself, learning all the intricacies of the legal and shadow sides of the work of cargo ports.

In Ventspils, Nusenkis was interested in the coal terminal, through which he decided to transship his Kuzbass coal, exported to many countries around the world.

Let us recall that at the beginning of the 2000s, Nusenkins became the owner of the Zarechnaya mine, one of the largest in Kuzbass (and more powerful than any Ukrainian), with which he began the creation of the Zarechnaya coal company, which united several more Kuzbass mines.

They produced so much coal that a new terminal had to be built in the port of Ventspils, with two capacities (the first launched in 2008, the second in 2013) each reaching 5 million tons per year.

Why there? By that time, the port of Ventspils had formed a certain image. Firstly, this is one of the free economic zones (FEZ) of Latvia; in fact, it is an export-import offshore, allowing you to save up to 80% on taxes, excise taxes and fees. Secondly, the owners and management of Ventspils Commercial Port, as well as local authorities, have developed very close and trusting relationships with Russian and Ukrainian-Russian oligarchs. Thus, even before Nusenkis came to Ventspils, Kremlin billionaire Dmitry Mazepin settled there and took control of the SIA Ventamonjaks ammonia terminal in the port with his Uralkali. And the financial director and member of the board of “Ventspils Commercial Port” helped him in this. Raivis Veckagans. Yes, yes, the same Vackagans, which later in 2017-2020. headed the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine (APMU). And now you will find out how and thanks to whom he got here.

Raivis Veckagans

Mazepin officially bought the ammonia terminal only in 2014, and until then he used it profitably according to a scheme that was created back in the early 2000s with the help of Veckagans. There was such a level of “trust” between them that it was not about simple corruption, and not even about Veckagans’s connections with the FSB, for which he was later accused, but, according to Skelet.Infoabout “gebesh schemes”. Let us clarify: this is the name for large-scale shadow schemes in which companies controlled by former or current officials of the KGB-FSB and other law enforcement agencies of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), as well as “protected” by Kremlin clans, participate. Such schemes have their own specifics, including a higher level of “secrecy” and “encryption.” And if Veckagans was initiated into them, then he really became an insider for this “KGB mafia.”

For the construction and management of the coal terminal, a company registered in Latvia, Baltic Coal Terminal, was created, the founder of which was the Latvian Indtec Baltic Coal, owned by the Dutch Indtec Finance BV, through which Nusenkis managed his coal assets (such an intricate chain). Alexander Starikov, an old close friend and companion of Nusenkins in all his business projects, became the director of the Baltic Coal Terminal. Starikov worked with him back in the 80s at Zhdanovskaya (chief engineer), and in the 2000s he left with Nusenkis in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and headed his Zarechnaya mine.

Alexander Starikov

Alexander Smirnov received only a seat as a member of the board at Baltic Coal Terminal. But this did not detract from his importance in this project, which, it seems, was entrusted precisely to the Zhdanovskys, Nusenkis’s old associates. According to sources Skelet.InfoSmirnov dealt with the most difficult part of this project – the shadow part, negotiating with the right people. In the process, he made many trusted connections, including Raivis Veckagans, whom he did not forget about after his return to Ukraine.

Alexander Smirnov and People Akhmetov

Why did Alexander Smirnov suddenly go to Akhmetov in 2010? After all, Nusenkis still retained his assets in Ukraine, which he finally lost only in 2018, when Akhmetov bought he has enterprises located in the uncontrolled territory of ORDILO. So this question is quite complex, although Smirnov himself tried to give a simple answer to it: they say, because he is “a professional who built the terminal in Ventspils”! But in reality, he was, at best, only a self-taught person who had nothing to do with construction, but with administrative design. That is, the point here is something else, which neither Smirnov nor Akhmetov would like to talk about.

Victor Dyachenko, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Alexander Smirnov: “watchers” of Ukrainian ports. PART 2

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