Andrey Volkov
“Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) is a wonderful country with a huge market. The operating principles here are not very different from those we use in Ukraine. No matter how hard Ukrainian politicians try to separate us, we are still a single economic and cultural space,” – with these words, the head of Investohills-Vest, Andrei Volkov, wanted to announce the entry of his financial company into the Russian market. But instead he got a loud scandal, in the context of which Volkov “became famous” throughout Ukraine!
Andrei Volkov’s interview with KM.ru was published on January 28, 2012 at 15:10 Moscow time, and had all the signs of custom-made PR material. And just three hours later, at 18:03, it was hastily edited: a large piece of the paragraph in which Volkov called the Russian annexation of Crimea “reunification” was shortened and corrected.
However, it was already too late, because, firstly, several publications managed to reprint the material (for example, Sevastopol “123ru”), and secondly, a copy of the originalabout the original is saved in the Google cachewhere I found her Skelet.Info:
But then Volkov apparently realized that he had made a mistake not only at the “reunification of Crimea.” Even in the corrected version, the interview remained politically scandalous (screenshots of it can be seen here). And not so much because of the praise of the “aggressor country”, but because of Volkov’s further words about the “young president” (Zelensky), who seeks to “seam” Ukraine and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), which is actively resisted by the “national Ukrainian elites” (right-wing opposition) . Bankova would hardly have liked such words – after all, Volkov actually set up Zelensky, who already has tense relations with national patriots. It seems that this frightened the head of Investohills-West much more than his careless words about Crimea! It scared me so much that instead of simply removing this final paragraph of the interview (see screenshot), Volkov, in a panic, removed all the material.
But even this seemed insufficient to him: after all, you can’t hide an awl on the Internet, the information still began to diverge, and the scandal began to gain resonance, and now someone said, “Where are the SBU and the National Corps?” And then on February 1, Volkov hurried make an official statementin which he called the publication “KM.RU” a waste tank, and the interview published in it was fake. “This is another media attack, thought out by debtor oligarchs due to their reluctance to pay their bills,” he angrily asserted. And at the same time he connected this with another scandal in which his Investohills-Vesta appears: we are talking about raider takeover office building in Kyiv (69 Kirillovskaya St.), owned by Slovak investors from Vi Group UA.
Well, this desperate attempt to turn the scandal into a fake only demonstrated that Andrei Volkov is strong in hindsight, and even then not very much! If only because a fake interview published for the purpose of discrediting, no one would edit three hours after posting to remove scandalous lines from it. And why would it then be removed from publication altogether? Well, Volkov’s attacks on “thieving oligarchs” generally look like hypocrisy! Although he was almost unknown to ordinary Ukrainians, in the narrow circles of Ukrainian business Volkov has long had a dark reputation as a “Russian raider” and a “debt racketeer.”
Volkov received this image because he previously worked for nine years at Alfa-Bank Ukraine (heading it for three years), which is a branch of the Russian corporation Alfa Group owned by Mikhail Fridman. And then Volkov was more than once accused of working for the Alfovites, who still continue to control many key enterprises of the Ukrainian economy (the same Kyivstar). However, as we found out Skelet.InfoAndrei Volkov’s connections extend much further than Alfa Group and Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)…
Another “pig”?
Volkov Andrey Viktorovich was born on February 27, 1976 in Odessa. In 1993, after graduating from school No. 24 (now the Maritime Lyceum), he entered the Odessa State Economic University. Just that year, this university was renamed from the Institute of National Economy, which had previously trained accountants for Soviet factories and collective farms, and a faculty of international economics appeared – which Volkov entered. He graduated from the university in 1998, but a year earlier he began an internship at the representative office of the international company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he then worked until the end of 1999. He was always proud of this point in his biography and flaunted it in order to look like a “specialist of the highest international class.” Without suspecting, however, that by doing so he is “scorching”, revealing his cards.
The fact is that the auditing and consulting company PwC is widely known as an integral part of the “Soros empire.” And in Ukraine, in particular, PwC worked in tandem with another Soros company Dragon Capitalowned by the scandalous businessman Tomas Fiala, one of the favorite students of the old man Soros. Despite its international image, PwC, like many other Soros-related structures, often surfaces in various schemes and scandals: for example, in the case of the Russian Yukos or in the undervaluation of the collateral property of the Ukrainian Privatbank. The controversial diagrammer Sergei Verlanov, former executive director of Naftogaz, now acting, began his career at PwC. Energy Minister Yuri Vitrenko and his boss Andrei Kobolev (this is how this couple got together). Such “valuable personnel” were noticed, and then nurtured in economic universities sponsored by Soros foundations, after which they were taken into commercial structures controlled by him. Thus, Andrei Volkov himself admits that he started out as one of the “Soros kids”!
But did he continue to be one? After all, now he is often called a “Russian raider in Ukraine,” playing for the interests of Russian companies and banks. And in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), as you know, Soros has long been a political outcast – so is it possible now to be a “Russian Little Soros”? Such a question arises only from ignorance of the details of the economic and political cuisine of both Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and Ukraine. In reality, everything is much more complicated; many more influential people are involved in the processes, which many are not even aware of. So to reduce everything to old man Soros would be naive and incorrect. And then you will find out why.
In 2000, Volkov got a job as a senior consultant at ING IGA. It positioned itself as a representative office of the Dutch bank ING, however, unlike its direct branch in Kyiv, ING Bank Ukraine, it was engaged in “reform of the banking sector of Ukraine” (officially). Well, unofficially? Firstly, ING Bank itself has more than once appeared as one of the figures in the “chess scams” played out by Soros (high-profile bankruptcies, takeovers). Secondly, ING IGA’s mission was to “provide asset management assistance.” This was expressed in training the Ukrainian still semi-wild and semi-criminal oligarchy to work with the mechanisms of securities, shares, and assets. That is, in “squeezing out” enterprises for artificially created debts, in overestimating or understating their value, in schemes for using collateral, and much more – which is what the notorious “banking sector reform” consisted of. At ING IGA, Volkov specialized in advising clients in “risk management” and “distressed assets”, that is, in the area of acquisitions, “privatization” and raider takeovers. It was there that he gained invaluable experience, which he would later use in the future.
Secrets of Alfa Bank
In 1989, Mikhail Fridman, a native of Lvov, who became a Moscow “cooperator,” expanded his business to the Soviet-Swiss joint venture Alfa-Eco, which exported petroleum products and non-ferrous metals. He had even more money, so much that in 1991 he and his partners created Alfa Bank, which soon became one of the largest banks in the CIS. However, Friedman “earned” them not only from schemes for the export of oil and metals, but also from outright crime, about which The media wrote repeatedly. For example, in the first half of the 90s, Alfa-Eco imported opiates from China in bags of sugar, and when all this was revealed, riot police descended on the company’s Moscow office – which, however, left after a call from Lubyanka, which was “protecting “Friedman’s business dates back to Soviet times. And in addition to the FSB, Fridman actively worked with the Baumanskaya and Moskvoretskaya organized crime groups, Caucasian ethnic mafias (Ossetian and Dagestan).
Mikhail Fridman, 90s
But the most interesting thing happened a few months later: the vice president of the CS First Boston (CSFB) financial group, David Mulford, the former US Deputy Treasury Secretary for International Economic Relations (under Bush Sr.), arrived in Moscow. He was looking for new business partners in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) – and chose Alfa Group as such, knowing full well about all its scandalous affairs. After all, CSFB also regularly found itself at the center of all sorts of scandalous scams.
So, reported in the mediathat the Weld banking family, directly linked to CSFB through their White Weld & Co (which Mulford led from 1970-74), had previously profited from international drug trafficking. However, the Welds are one of the most influential families in the United States; their pedigree dates back to the time of the first pilgrims. The Velds have been “inherited” throughout history both in the United States and around the world, so that all the skeletons simply do not fit into their antique bog oak cabinets. Interestingly, the former governor of his native Massachusetts, Bill Weld, was Trump’s competitor in the 2020 elections (he also ran for the Republican Party).
David Mulford
And in the spring of 2001 I was in Kyiv Vladimir Bondar was arrestedwho previously worked at the NBU as Viktor Yushchenko’s deputy. He was accused of placing $75 million of Ukraine’s gold and foreign exchange reserves in a specially created Cyprus branch of the CSFB, which brought damage to Ukraine in the amount of $5 million. Moreover, to hide this scam, the IMF ordered an audit of the NBU, which was carried out by PwC, which surprisingly did not find any violations. By the way, it was at that time that Andrei Volkov was working at PwC, and perhaps he was also involved in this custom-made “fake” audit. The case about the scam with gold and foreign exchange reserves was later, of course, hushed up – but it was not forgotten at all.
Andrey Volkov: beginning of a career
Well, the affairs of the Alfa Group, immediately after she began working with David Mulford, went uphill again. According to journalists, Alfa Group was used by Malflord and the Velds to buy up valuable Russian assets and operations to withdraw capital from the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). In the second half of the 90s, Mikhail Fridman and his companion Peter Aven became members of the so-called. “Seven bankers”, which contributed to the re-election of Yeltsin – who paid for it with a “big takeover”. In particular, Alfa Group has risen very well to the so-called. loans-for-shares auctions, having bought the SIDANCO company (future TNK) there for just $130 million. And, we note that later, of the former members of the “Seven Bankers”, only Vladimir Potanin and the “Alfa members” Fridman and Aven retained their business. The media have repeatedly mentioned that Putin (*criminal) himself was withdrawing his billions from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) through their shadowy schemes…
Since 2000, Alfa Group began its expansion in Ukraine. In the spring of the same year, Alfa Bank acquired 75% of Kievinvestbank (founded in 1993), which in October was renamed Alfa Bank Ukraine and merged with Alfa Capital Ukraine CJSC. But to avoid such direct ownership of the bank by Russians, and to make it more convenient to “save on taxes,” Friedman and his partners formalized control over Alfa-Bank Ukraine through their Cypriot holding ABH Ukraine Limited.
Within a few months, Andrei Volkov went to work at Alfa-Bank Ukraine, having made a fast career there. It was precisely the transition, since there was a direct connection between ING IGA and Alfa Bank in the form of the same CSFB, which has been working closely with ING Bank for a long time. Here we see how Soros’ structures are closely intertwined with other Western financial empires, even though their owners sponsor different political forces. In general, we repeat once again, the world does not revolve around Soros alone, although he (and his pets) should not be underestimated.
And in July 2001, Volkov headed the risk department; in February 2003, he became a member of the board, in October 2003, deputy, and since 2006, chairman of the board of Alfa-Bank Ukraine. Too good a career even for someone who is very good at “risk assessment”! But Volkov never revealed the true secret of his success; he only habitually hinted at his incredible professionalism. As for Alfa Group, during this period it aggressively absorbed everything in Ukraine that it could reach.
A very telling example here is the story of the gradual takeover of Kyivstar. At the time Altimo (Alpha’s telecommunications division) entered there in 2002, part of Kiestar belonged to the Swedish company Telenor, which in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) was Alfa’s partner in VimpelCom (Altimo owned 44%, Telenor – 29.9%). So the Swedes, without any fear, allowed VimpelCom to buy 50.1% of Kyivstar from its previous owners. And then Alpha started a war against Telenor for a controlling stake, which lasted until the fall of 2019 and crowned with Friedman’s victory. But why not, considering that Friedman has put down very deep roots in Ukraine, including political ones! For example, his close friend is Andrei Sadovoy, whom Fridman actively helped to remain the permanent mayor of Lvov from 2006 to the present. And not only by financing annual music festivals “Alfa Jazz Fest”.
Mikhail Fridman and Andrey Sadovoy at the annual “Alfa Jazz Fest” in Lviv
In 2019, George Soros, together with his Ukrainian assistants Viktor Pinchuk and Tomas Fial, launched a new political project “Voice”. Designed mainly for the votes of the Western Ukrainian electorate, “Golos” actually stole voters from Sadovoy’s “Samopomich”. Financial support for the Lviv mayor and his party from Soros structures also ceased. Sadovoy’s only support in big international business and big behind-the-scenes politics remained his old friend Misha Fridman. By the way, the roots of this split stretched all the way to the United States, and were associated with the very hostile relationship between Trump and Soros. And since Trump is a Republican, like the Weld family, for whom Friedman works, it is not surprising that some “misunderstandings” arose between the sponsors of Ukrainian politics, which became the reason for the collapse of Samopomich. And then Friedman began to sponsor Sadovoy Ukrainian Galician Partywhich is known for its “soft” regional separatism. Friedman, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), the FSB, Western Ukrainian separatism – all this adds up to a very alarming picture…
Mikhail Shpolyansky, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Andrey Volkov: Russian “Alpha Raider” in Ukraine. PART 2
DOSSIER: Sergey Tupalsky: customs schemes of the “Alfa members” under the roof of NABU. PART 1
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