Andrey Kozhemyakin
By the age of forty, Andrei Anatolyevich Kozhemyakin became a major general and deputy head of the SBU. Now he is a people’s deputy from the Batkivshchyna party, and recently received the rank of lieutenant general. As is customary with all military personnel, he has an impeccable official biography and an impressive track record.
True, the officer is full of secrets. His name is associated with such high-profile cases as the destruction of documents in the case of the international mafia Semyon Mogilevich, involvement in the “jeep hunt” for the villager Oleinik with Viktor Lozinsky, drug smuggling under the cover of the SBU.
Hereditary military man
Andrey Anatolyevich is a native Odessa resident. He was born into the family of a security officer – a high-ranking KGB officer, lieutenant general of the SBU. Until 1991, his father worked in the KGB on the “fifth line” in Western Ukraine (defense of statehood, as well as the fight against subversive ideological centers, etc.). When the main department “K” was created within the structure of the SBU to combat corruption and organized crime, it was headed by Kozhemyakin Sr. In fact, he can be considered one of the creators of the SBU. By the way, in 2005, Kozhemyakin Sr. died under unclear circumstances, drowned in the Sukhoi Estuary in the Odessa region.
Andrey Kozhemyakin followed in his father’s footsteps. In 1986, he graduated from the Kiev Higher Naval Political School and until 1988 served as a lieutenant in the USSR Black Sea Fleet in naval intelligence units. Kozhemyakin was a diver officer and engaged in underwater sabotage. In 1988 he graduated from the KGB school in Novosibirsk and went to serve in Sevastopol in a special department. After 3 years, Kozhemyakin went to work for the SBU. In this structure, he worked his way up from an investigator to the head of one of the services. In 2002, Andrei Anatolyevich participated in an operation to eliminate an international criminal drug gang. For its implementation, Kozhemyakin received the rank of colonel ahead of schedule.
Career success
At the beginning of 2005, Andrei Anatolyevich headed the main department for combating corruption and organized crime of the SBU (directorate “K”), which was previously headed by his father. Already in April, Alexander Turchynov, at that time the head of the SBU (Read more about Alexander Turchinov in the article Alexander Turchinov. Skeletons in the closet of the “bloody pastor” of Ukraine), invited Kozhemyakin to become his deputy. It was rumored that in this case, friendly relations between men played a decisive role. When Turchynov resigned from his post in September 2005 in protest against the resignation of Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, Andrei Anatolyevich immediately resigned after him. However, he remained a freelance adviser to Igor Drizhchany, who headed the SBU. In the same year, Kozhemyakin received the rank of major general.
By the way, this is when the website is created ORDedited by former SBU press secretary Stanislav Rechinsky. Materials to which only operational workers had access begin to appear on this site. After Euromaidan, Rechinsky temporarily served as assistant press secretary to the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov (Read more about him in the article Arsen Avakov: the criminal past of the Minister of Internal Affairs). It is also believed that he broke up with Kozhemyakin a long time ago and is receiving support from other sources.
And once again “by the way”: with the departure of Igor Drizhchany, when the SBU was headed by Valentin Nalyvaichenko (For more information about Valentin Nalyvaichenko, read the article Valentin Nalyvaichenko. Spy, diplomat and corrupt official), almost all the “majors” who were hired thanks to Turchinov. Naturally, with “flash drives”, information from which repeatedly surfaced on the ORD website.
What else should a military man do at the start of his career if not go into politics? Moreover, everything worked out well and the 2006 parliamentary elections were just around the corner. Kozhemyakin became number 25 on the list of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) and successfully entered Parliament.
And immediately the first appointment – Kozhemyakin heads the parliamentary commission on privatization. The first thing he does in his new position is to go all-in and seek a veto of the privatization plan for 2007, proposed by the head of the State Property Fund (SPF), socialist Valentina Semenyuk (Read more about Valentina Semenyuk in the article “Fatal” Turboatom: what secrets brought Semenyuk-Samsonenko to the grave). He sharply criticizes the competitions for the sale of Luganskteplovoz to Transmashholding, as well as Komsomolsky Mining Administration to the Mariupol Iron and Steel Works. Ilyich. Just at this time there is talk about the privatization of Ukrtelecom, but Kozhemyakin is doing his best to prevent this. In addition, he initiates a bill that should prohibit the SPF from establishing additional conditions for the participation of buyers in auctions and competitions. However, at the last moment they stopped talking about it, and it was not adopted. Thanks to such “correct” and radical decisions, Andrei Anatolyevich showed himself to be a highly moral person and a supporter of reprivatization. But is it really that simple? Most likely, he was being trained as an “insider” in the FIG, and the facts speak about this. When Yulia Tymoshenko became prime minister in 2008, the first thing she did was dismiss Valentina Semenyuk from the post of head of the State Property Fund and, of course, appointed BYuT member Andrei Portnov (more about him in the article Andrey Portnov: raider history). However, he was never able to take his place “physically” (he was simply not allowed into the SPFU building), and a few months later the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against him in connection with an attempt to illegally privatize the Odessa port plant. True, not without the suggestion of President Viktor Yushchenko. And then Kozhemyakin immediately enters the arena. BYuT initiate his appointment to the position of head of the State Property Fund. But the plan fails miserably – the opposition and the presidential secretariat opposed it. So Tymoshenko was left without her “influence” in the State Property Fund. But Yulia Vladimirovna did not leave her protégé without a tasty morsel and appointed him to the position of her adviser. Andrei Anatolyevich remained as an adviser for 2 years, until the arrival of the new government in the person of Mykola Azarov.
A special place belongs to Andrei Kozhemyakin in the story of the detention of fugitive general Andrei Pukach, who was the perpetrator of the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze. Back in 2005, the department controlled by Andrei Anatolyevich had information that Pukach was hiding in Israel. According to Kozhemyakin, everything was ready for the arrest. He and 4 other SBU officers arrived in Israel. According to the information received, Pukach was with his mistress near Tel Aviv. Initially, negotiations with the Israeli police went well, but then they refused to hand over Pukach, explaining that he did not have an Interpol “red card” issued to him. Also, from Interpol documents it turned out that Pukach is wanted not for committing murder, but for abuse of power and exceeding official authority. Let us note that it is the Prosecutor General’s Office that transmits data on crimes to Interpol. The question remains: why did the Prosecutor General’s Office decide to charge Pukach with “abuse of power”, but keep silent about the murder committed? In turn, the General Prosecutor’s Office denied all accusations, calling Kozhemyakin’s operation an adventure. There was a rumor that after this incident an arrest warrant was signed for Andrei Anatolyevich with an open date, but it was never put into action.
Bouquet of criminal cases
So, back in the USSR, the KGB had the “Mogilevich Case” – about 20 volumes “exposing” the activities of the mafia. Of course, there was a volume that talked about Mogilevich’s friendship with Firtash, Fursin, and, most likely, with Yulia Tymoshenko. Especially considering her friendship with Dmitry Firtash. In addition, a number of important documents from the special services were added to the Case, which revealed the activities of the Mogilevich clan, aimed at enriching themselves by creating and implementing commercial schemes that were unprofitable for Ukraine in the fuel and energy complex and the chemical industry. It seemed like this was it! However, the “Mogilevich Case” disappeared. Andrei Kozhemyakin, at that time deputy head of the SBU and head of the Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime (Department “K”), was accused of the destruction. Allegedly, he did this on the orders of Turchinov, who, in turn, received instructions from Yulia Tymoshenko. Andrei Anatolyevich simply ordered his subordinates to prepare a resolution within 40 minutes to close and destroy the documents of the operational intelligence agency on the Mogilevich group.
Let us note that the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a case on this fact in March 2006, but already in June the case was closed by the Pechersk District Court under Article 6, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “absence of corpus delicti” after considering Turchynov’s complaint about the illegal actions of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“The Case of Illegal Wiretapping” The second criminal case against Andrei Kozhemyakin was opened on the fact of illegal wiretapping by SBU officers of Segodnya newspaper journalist Alexander Korchinsky. How did Korchinsky “distinguish himself”? The fact is that he was the first to write material about the whereabouts of the fugitive Alexei Pukach, thereby revealing a state secret to the mass audience. At the time the material was published, the SBU operation to extradite Pukach from Israel was just being prepared. The SBU responded to this by opening a criminal case, in which they wiretapped the telephone conversations of Alesandr Korchinsky. In turn, the General Prosecutor’s Office considered the opening of a case against Korchinsky to be illegal and opened its own criminal case against Deputy Chairman of the SBU Andrei Kozhemyakin. The case went to court, but the actions of the Prosecutor General’s Office were declared illegal. Representatives of the department even apologized for the “mistake.” By the way, many media outlets accused Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin of “leaking” information to journalist Korchinsky. He certainly denied the accusations. But Kozhemyakin still has a stain on his reputation.
The story of the “jeep hunt” In the summer of 2009, Ukraine was shocked by a resonant murder in the Kirovograd region. At the center of the scandal was MP from the BYuT party Viktor Lozinsky. He, the prosecutor and the chief policeman staged a real manhunt. While driving around their hunting grounds (which covers 26 thousand hectares – a third of the Golovanevsky district of the Kirovograd region), the men noticed a person on the territory. It turned out to be the villager Oleinik. Lozinsky didn’t like it when someone walked on his property, so he simply went wild. He jumped out of the car and started shooting at the man with a gun, after which they ran over the body. The man died from his injuries.
Victor Lozinsky
All this was similar to a popular entertainment among the powers that be – a “safari” to a live target. It would seem that there is such a resonance – the SBU must find the culprit in a matter of days and bring it to justice. But there is one “but”… The SBU is headed by Turchinov, and his deputy is Kozhemyakin, and they are BYuT members by calling of their souls. Most likely, the agreement to save a fellow party member and the decree of Tymoshenko herself allowed Lozinsky to hide abroad for 7 months. In addition, Andrei Anatolyevich decided to canonize his “brother” as a saint. He said that the killing of the villager was just self-defense. It seems that Oleinik is a dangerous repeat offender who terrorized the entire region. Kozhemyakin even offered to express gratitude to Lozinsky.
However, there is another version that explains this behavior of BYuT members. Allegedly, Kozhemyakin was also in the car. He, as it turned out, was a frequent visitor to the people’s deputy’s hunting grounds. Most likely, Andrei Anatolyevich promised Lozinsky that the SBU would close the case, but was unable to do so due to public outcry.
According to the famous lawyer and human rights activist Tatyana Montyan, the so-called. The “Savchenko Law” was lobbied precisely by Kozhemyakin for the release of his friend Lozinsky. And it doesn’t matter that as a result of the adoption of this law, hundreds of murderers were released early.
Cocaine cases There is not a single fact that would prove Kozhemyakin’s involvement in the drug business. However, that’s why he works for the SBU – secrecy is paramount.
In the period from 1996 to 2006, the main department “K” of the SBU was closely involved in preventing drug smuggling into Ukraine. Three people were involved in this “operation”: Andrei Kozhemyakin, Vladislav Bukharev and Alexander Popivnyak. They decided to help the state, and they didn’t forget about their interests. There are several stories.
In 2002, this group of people covered up the transfer of 6 tons of cocaine in the Ilyichevsk port. Some Odessa resident was picking up the cargo from Guatemala.
In 2004, a ship from Panama entered the Kherson port. 6 tons of cocaine were landed ashore under the guise of a seizure operation.
A little later, group “K” established close ties with Ukrainian, Russian, and Moldavian drug lords. Drugs were brought into Ukraine through an established network. It even got to the point that carriers had group “K” numbers, which provided a “green” corridor upon first request. But still, the scheme was imperfect and had to be abandoned.
A little about income
For 2014, Andrey Kozhemyakin declared 714 thousand hryvnia of income. He also received 368 thousand for the sale of real estate. He only owns a garage of 17 square meters. Family members have slightly more property – a plot of 0.12 hectares, a residential building measuring 346 square meters. and apartment – 207 sq. m. Neither the deputy nor his family members have bank deposits, securities or other assets.
Andrey Anatolyevich drives a Toyota Camry. But the 2013 Subaru XV, declared in 2013, has disappeared somewhere.
—
They say that education and military rank do not make a person a person. This, of course, does not concern Andrei Kozhemyakin at all.
Arina Dmitrieva, for SKELET-info