Andrey Kholodov: tobacco captain of Zelensky’s team. PART 1

Having deceived Ukrainian voters with loud slogans about a merciless fight against corruption, the “Ze-Team” brought into the new Rada people for whom the prosecutor’s office has also been crying for a long time. But the “servants of the people” do not offend their comrades; on the contrary, they provide them with the opportunity to openly lobby their business in parliament. And so the famous metropolitan “tobacco kiosk” Andrei Kholodov, having received a deputy mandate, first of all pushed through an amendment to bill No. 1049, redistributing a significant part of the proceeds from the sale of cigarettes in favor of sellers – that is, his own companies.

At the same time, Kholodov categorically denied his connection with the tobacco business and covered himself with hypocritical “concern” for the income of other entrepreneurs and jobs for ordinary people. However, journalists very quickly found out and described in detail the tobacco schemes of the Kholodov family. This simply infuriated the “servant of the people” who sued to the program “Schemes” and Radio Liberty. However, the stated facts were taken into account by NABU and became the basis for a criminal investigation, which forced Kholodov to stop pretending to be innocently slandered.

Meanwhile, journalists became interested not only in the current business, but also in the dark past of Andrei Kholodov, as well as his current wife Ekaterina Shakhovskaya. Who is a long-time close friend and godfather of Oksana Marchenko, a famous TV presenter and wife of Viktor Medvedchuk – in turn, who is the godfather of Vladimir Putin (*criminal)…

Victor Medvedchuk and Oksana Marchenko

Assyrian inheritance

Kholodov Andrey Ivanovich was born on August 20, 1972 in Kremenchug, where he graduated from high school No. 25. His bio claims that she is supposedly “specialized”, but she is not. Built according to a typical Soviet design and opened in 1969, it was the most ordinary city school – and only in the 2000s it was renamed the “humanitarian collegium”. So her imaginary “specialization” was invented by Kholodov’s biographers to give him the image of a kind of child prodigy.

After school, Kholodov entered the Kiev Automobile and Highway Institute (KADI, now the National Transport University), at the Faculty of Automobiles and Automotive Industry. At KADI, he probably met its then secretary of the Komsomol committee, Igor Kononenko, although it is unlikely that he had a close relationship with him.

In 1994, Kholodov received a diploma, and a year earlier he began his career at the Duncan-Kyiv company. Then he became its sales director, and in 1998 he started his own business. This is exactly how the start of his career in the 90s is briefly described, after which a complete gap begins in Kholodov’s biography right up to the 2019 elections. And if you don’t take into account the details, then there is nothing special here: I studied, worked, became an entrepreneur. An almost perfect biography, carefully corrected and cleaned up!

Viktor Avdyshev, champion of the 70s

But its authors clearly should not have left in it a mention of the Duncan-Kyiv company, which, by the way, was not a company at all, but a British-Ukrainian joint venture through which trade in “consumer goods” was carried out, that is, almost everything – from alcohol and cigarettes to cars. Of course, a lot of people worked at Duncan-Kyiv – the company had many branches in different areas, hired many sales agents in the mid-90s, but for some reason only Andrei Kholodov was lucky enough to become its sales director (key position), and then – one of the richest businessmen in Ukraine (although he hides his capital). Oh yes, one could say that he achieved everything through honest labor, washing apples for sale day and night! But there is one curious fact that modern journalists have missed: according to Skelet.InfoJV “Duncan-Kyiv” was one of the enterprises controlled by the so-called. “Assyrian” organized crime group of Viktor Avdyshev.

Avdyshev’s organized crime group was, if not the strongest, then certainly the largest in Kyiv: its number reached a thousand “fighters.” Many of them were officially employed: some in private security companies, others in commercial companies – as managers and sales agents. Therefore, questions arise about what exactly did Andrei Kholodov do at Duncan-Kyiv? Did he really come there from the street and work in the trading department, or was he one of the members of the organized crime group and the “supervisor” of the company? And who had a better chance of becoming sales director in this joint venture?

“Assyrian Bratva”: Avdyshev and his organized crime group

Speaking of sales. The shadow business of Avdyshev’s organized crime group began at the Republican Stadium with the company “Mercury”, created by the scandalous businessman Semyon Yufa, Avdyshev’s henchman Harry Gabovich, and Alexander Presman, who was assigned there as a “supervisor” from Semyon Mogilevich. Having accumulated huge capital through racketeering and financial pyramids, in the mid-90s the organized crime group relied specifically on the trade in “consumer goods”, making a profit by evading taxes, selling contraband, counterfeit goods and stolen goods, creating “network trade” pyramids, etc. “Duncan-Kyiv” played an important role in their schemes, having a huge turnover! Suffice it to say that, having tax benefits for the joint venture and paying only symbolic amounts to the treasury, Duncan-Kyiv was still one of the ten largest taxpayers in Ukraine among joint ventures. And one can only imagine what colossal amounts were diverted from taxation. And directly behind this was the leadership of the joint venture, including Andrei Kholodov. This is where he received his informal education as a “shadow economist”, and this is where his cigarette schemes grew from.

And now about how Kholodov got his business. In 1998, Avdyshev, who had previously been arrested, was released on bail of 200 thousand hryvnia, just a few days before the trial. There were rumors in Kyiv that the bribe to the judge who released Avdyshev was even larger – half a million dollars, and that this was negotiated by Grigory Surkis, a friend and companion of Viktor Medvedchuk, and the petition was officially drawn up by lawyer Yuri Gaisinsky – the future prosecutor of Kyiv and the region, father-in-law of Gennady Kernes . Officially, Avdyshev was released to attend the funeral of his mother, who lived in Baku, but he never returned from Azerbaijan back to Ukraine. Since the “zero” years he has lived in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), becoming Viktor Yuryevich Kochiev.

Immediately after Avdyshev’s escape, the division of his organized crime group’s business began between “foremen,” “supervisors,” and “directors.” And it was then, in 1998, that Andrei Kholodov became an entrepreneur! True, in his biography you will not find the names of his first companies – for some reason he hides them. But it is written that he was “engaged in the sale and rental of commercial real estate, business consulting and development.” Kholodov’s biographers have tried hard to portray him as an advanced office businessman, with a latte in one hand and a gold Parker in the other – all that’s missing is a framed Harvard diploma on the wall! But the reality was somewhat different. According to sources Skelet.InfoAndrei Kholodov “inherited” from Avdyshev something much more valuable than companies – he received “unofficial exclusive rights” to trade cigarettes in those niches of the Kyiv consumer market, which was controlled by the “Assyrian” organized crime group. And he began to actively develop this business, which became his own.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Andrey Kholodov: tobacco captain of Zelensky’s team. PART 2

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