Andriy Pasishnik: an effective manager of Ukrainian corruption. PART 2

CONTINUED. BEGINNING: Andriy Pasishnik: an effective manager of Ukrainian corruption. PART 1

Andrey Pasishnik. Oil Wars

For the owners of Continuum, Euromaidan was rather a negative milestone – but from a business rather than a political point of view. Apparently, the change of power had some impact on their connections in power, since the number and volume of their fuel tenders in the post-Maidan period have significantly decreased: in 2014-2015 by 7.6 billion hryvnia, and in 2016-2017 by 2.3 billion hryvnia. And the hryvnia was not the same! In addition, according to WOG, Skeleton.Infocompetitors began to put pressure on them, especially Kolomoisky, who was in full swing and who in 2014-2015 acted in a completely “lawless” manner, relying on his battalions.

And yet, Yeremeyev’s connections in parliamentary committees were truly endless. When the formation of the new government began in the spring of 2014, he managed to push his assistant Andriy Pasishnyk to the post of deputy chairman of the board and executive director of NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, where he oversaw issues of the domestic oil products market. But that’s not all: in October 2014, Pasishnyk was made chairman of the supervisory board of Ukrgazvydobuvannya.

His formal boss was the head of the board of Naftogaz, Andriy Kobolev, who had close ties with Yuriy Vitrenko (Natalia Vitrenko’s son) and Igor Didenko. In reality, Pasishnik was seated next to Kolobov as a representative of business groups, primarily Yeremeyev-Ivakhiv-Lagur. And it was very timely, since in 2014 Kolomoisky launched a massive “attack” on WOG: then everyone said that he wanted to knock the company out of the oil market and take its position (taking the network of gas stations, oil depots). And this also became the reason for the reduction in the number of tenders received by WOG. The relationship between Kolomoisky and Pasishnik was openly hostile: for example, at one of the meetings in the Naftogaz office, the oligarch publicly threatened the executive director that he “will sit like Yulia Vladimirovna” (see the video at 2 minutes 50 seconds).

Pasishnyk’s situation became more complicated after Igor Yeremeyev died in an accident in August 2015. Kolomoisky went on the attack and even tried to buy out the shares of the Continuum group of companies from Yeremeyev’s widow (for a subsequent hostile takeover). However, his partners (Ivakhiv, Lagur) were not idle either: they tried to ensure that Yeremeyev’s shares went not to his wife, but to his children – from whom their people were supposed to buy up (or “squeeze out”) the shares. Meanwhile, in the second half of 2015, the head of Naftogaz Kobolyev leaned towards Kolomoisky. The new top manager of Ukrnafta, Mark Rollins, also moved there, replacing Peter Vanhecke in 2015 (who had been in charge of the company since 2011). Already in January 2016, Rollins appointed Anatoliy Taranets, who was called Kolomoisky’s man, as the Director of the Department of Oil, Gas and Petroleum Products Sales at Ukrnafta. And this is not counting the fact that there were already many Privatites in leadership positions at Naftogaz and Ukrnafta. And this was a fight not only for the monopolization of resources and flows: thus, Mark Rollins and the Privatites immediately blocked the issue of returning 11 billion to Ukrnafta, which had been transferred to Privat structures – while the company itself owed billions to the state budget.

In fact, by the beginning of 2016, Andriy Pasishnyk remained in Naftogaz in a deep defense: he only issued one accusation after another against his colleagues working for Privat. The Continuum group was also not doing well after Yeremeyev’s death (if you can call the reduction in the volume of received tenders that way), but they received support from Kononenko – and the presidential “family” is a serious defense in the war with Kolomoisky. Judging by the fact that Pasishnyk began to be promoted to the post of Deputy Minister of Economic Development, they decided to remove him from Naftogaz, completely ceding the company to Kolomoisky. One thing was surprising: why the Ministry of Economic Development? According to Pasishnyk, Skeleton.Infotried (unsuccessfully) to push it into the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, which was logical – so to speak, work on the oil profile and in the interests of the Ivakhiv-Lagura group. But here their goals were unclear, and besides, the whole idea fell apart after Abromavicius decided to publicly declare that Pasishnik was being forced upon him as an assistant.

Considering that a few months before this, a conflict had broken out between Kolomoisky and Abromavicius, and it had gone so far that the former called the latter a “monkey,” the Lithuanian minister clearly did not act in the interests of Privat.

There was only one conclusion: Abromavicius was Yatsenyuk’s man, and Yatsenyuk was in conflict with the president’s “family” because it insisted on the government’s resignation. And NABU, despite its apparent political impartiality, was created by “foreign professionals” from the US who support Yatsenyuk, not Poroshenko.

That is, the case against Pasishnyk, in fact, was initially formed as a case against Kononenko. And this was absolutely true, because Andriy Pasishnyk himself could put pressure on Abromavicius only with his weight. Indeed, Pasishnyk is not an independent figure, he is a top manager from the Continuum group, participating in its shadow and corruption schemes, defending its interests in Naftogaz, but nothing more. This figure was moved by Ivakhiv-Lagur (possibly with the participation of Dyminsky) through Kononenko. However, it turned out that the names of the “Continuum” members were not mentioned in the case at all (did Abromavicius really not know who was moving Pasishnyk as his assistant?), Kononenko immediately dropped out of the case – and only Pasishnyk remained, who, from a skilled corruption manager, risks turning into a figurehead chairman of Funt.

However, let us repeat, there is clearly not enough evidence for a real sentence. And for many ordinary Ukrainians this case seems completely insignificant: so what, someone wanted to get someone somewhere! Alas, not everyone understands that such people who are placed where they should be contribute to the most large-scale corruption, which is incredibly difficult to fight.

However, Andriy Pasishnyk himself is not despondent about this. Although in early 2016 he lost his post as executive director of Naftogaz and chairman of the board of Ukrgazvydobuvannya (Kobolev took advantage of the scandal and swept him away), Pasishnyk managed to find refuge in June 2016 in the position of deputy head of Ukrtransnafta. And this is not surprising, because it is headed by an old acquaintance of Pasishnyk – former co-owner of UTN-Vostok Nikolay Gavrilenko! And this means that the oil oligarchs Ivakhiv and Lagur, who stand behind Pasishnyk, have gained access to the management of the company that controls all of Ukraine’s oil pipelines and oil terminals.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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