CONTINUED. BEGINNING: Vladislav Atroshenko: Chernigov “baker” of golden loaves. PART 1
Atroshenko Vladislav: Chernigov “baker” of golden loaves. PART 2
In 2002, Valeriy Kulich moved to the director’s chair of Forsazh LLC (31691350), into which he and Atroshenko had already invested 8,250 hryvnia each. Through it, they sold fodder corn, feed wheat, and sunflower seeds for export. Also, Kulich and Atroshenko are partners in Pivnichagro LLC (39000448), Agro-Trader Private Enterprise (33071597), Riel-Ko LLC (33799824), Niva-Plus Private Joint-Stock Company (14223494), Inter LLC (30148677), Desna-FK-2 LLC (35956493), Sidko-Ukraine LLC (39274623), and Ichnyansky Transport Hub (42865321). They have invested several million in some of them! By the way, the total land fund of Atroshenko and Kulich’s agricultural firms exceeds 25 thousand hectares. But their joint agricultural enterprise “Zhadkovskoe” (30834729) with a charter capital of only 1500 hryvnias owns a cowshed for 400 heads and large meadows – which they rented from poor villagers for only 140-150 hryvnias per hectare per year. At the same time, the enterprise chronically delayed wages, did not pay overtime and vacation pay.
Poroshenko appoints Kulich as head of Chernihiv Regional State Administration
It was impossible to hide all this business, known to many Chernihiv residents. So when in 2015 Poroshenko appointed Valeriy Kulich as the head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, he had to declare his wealth (not everything, but a lot), which included a whole fleet of cars, a mansion and three apartments (one registered to his wife), as well as one and a half million hryvnia, 800 thousand dollars and 600 thousand euros in cash. This made Kulich the wealthiest (officially) Ukrainian governor of the year! And even in his post, he continued to shamelessly “make money”, declaring almost 40 million hryvnia of income in the form of “gifts”, rental income and corporate rights for 2017.
At the same time, about The media reported about Kulich following: “Baths, women, restaurants – this is how the employees of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration describe the harsh working days of their boss… When the work schedule does not allow Governor Kulich to go to restaurants, friendly gatherings with alcohol are transferred directly to the governor’s office. After the end of the working day, the format of activities changes, if Valeriy Petrovich still decides to stay at work, the employees of the apparatus sometimes have to hear the “business and professional activity” of the governor and his ladies of the heart. Among the latter, local gossips name, in particular, Yulia Sviridenko – Kulich’s first deputy. However, the talk is not only about Sviridenko – the head of the Regional State Administration apparatus Tatyana Gleb is considered to be the heartfelt interest of Vladislav Atroshenko…”.
And Vladislav Atroshenko was elected mayor of Chernihiv in the same 2015, so the friends and partners ruled together – one the city, the other the region, bringing them to ruin. According to the results of 2017 (and now too), the Chernihiv region became the most economically depressed, it has the lowest standard of living in the country, and recently dust storms have been added to all the troubles – as a result of the barbaric depletion of the land by “farmers” like Atroshenko and Kulich.
Vladislav Atroshenko: Scams and Crimes
Vladislav Atroshenko himself was once the governor of Chernihiv Oblast, but he did not hold this post for long. It all began ten years before Yanukovych’s golden loaf, when newly elected MP Atroshenko decided to curry favor with the leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition Viktor Yushchenko and joined the Our Ukraine faction. It all looked like an impulse of the soul and a sudden attack of national consciousness, but people who knew Atroshenko only laughed and said that the reason for this political trick was the fall of his patron Mykola Butko, who had provoked Kuchma’s wrath. That is, Atroshenko simply decided to hide in the ranks of the opposition, just in case, to avoid investigation and responsibility. At the same time, as we have already mentioned, he insinuated himself into Kinakh’s entourage and became an advisor to the chairman of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
In the 2004 presidential elections, Atroshenko took on the task of representing Yushchenko in the Chernihiv region. Even then, he successfully played on the despair of the region’s residents, to whose ruin he also had a hand. Plus, Atroshenko pulled all his acquaintances, officials, businessmen, and near-criminal elements “for Yushchenko,” promising them mountains of gold – and they, in turn, launched a massive “orange” campaign in Chernihiv. Its success was not at all affected by the fatal accident caused by Vladislav Atroshenko on September 17, 2004. How the media reportedAtroshenko’s Mercedes 600, racing at a speed of almost 200 km/h, hit a 69-year-old pensioner, whose leg was torn off by the terrible impact of the flying heavy limousine and whose body was thrown 25 meters from the scene of the collision! Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Mikhail Manin, Head of the Chernihiv Regional Department of Internal Affairs Vasily Kulida and Regional Prosecutor Nikolay Lisovyi immediately rushed to the scene of the tragedy. Since Atroshenko hit (killed) an old man trying to cross the road far from the zebra crossing, the law was partially on his side, but he exceeded the permissible speed by almost three times! The investigation was difficult, and the case was being handled by Colonel Kochubey of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who came under Atroshenko’s harsh pressure. In the end, the case was hushed up and forgotten, and Atroshenko continued to campaign for a “people’s president”.
As a result, in the first round in the region Yushchenko gained 43%, in the second 65%, and in the third 71%! Thus, the former “red” Chernigov sort of separated from the “white-blue” South-East, and since then began to actively support the “pro-Ukrainian” political forces that promised the region a “European future”. Delighted by the victory, Atroshenko immediately recommended that all his businessmen friends get signs “Public Union For Yushchenko – For Ukraine” and hang them on the doors of their offices before the inspection authorities arrive.
In gratitude, on April 4, 2005, Yushchenko appointed Atroshenko head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration. It would seem, well, steal for yourself quietly! But soon the name Atroshenko was heard again in the context of bloody criminal scandals. On October 20, 2005, the chairman of the parliamentary committee for combating organized crime and corruption, Volodymyr Stretovich, sent a letter to the new prime minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, in which he listed the latest “exploits” of Governor Atroshenko.
It told about the raider takeovers of a number of enterprises and firms (Detsky Mir, Polesie, Vena, Lakomka, State Enterprise Chernigovtorf, the Novgorod-Siversky Hotel, etc.), as well as four murders related to Atroshenko’s fight for the Niva market. First, back in December 2004, local “authority” Alexander Atroshchenko (almost the same name) nicknamed “Atron” was shot. Then, on March 9, 2005, the founder of Niva, Roman Buchkovsky, was killed – he was shot along with his dog, which he went out for a walk. A month later, another founder of Niva, Valeriy Marchenko, was shot. Frightened by these murders, the third co-founder of the market, Ruslan Litovchenko, turned to law enforcement agencies for support, but was also killed in May 2005. After which PJSC “Trading Complex “Niva” (EDRPOU 32728799) came under the control of Vladislav Atroshenko.
Apparently, it was difficult to completely hush up this scandal, so in December 2005, Atroshenko was removed from his post as governor, and for more than a year he “sat and kept a low profile,” doing business – and then, in March 2007, he received an almost symbolic position as an advisor to the chairman of “Kredobank.” And only in February 2009 did great fortune turn to his face: Atroshenko was appointed head of the supervisory board of OJSC “Khlib Kieva,” which managed such large enterprises as “Kyivmlyn” and “Kyivkhlib.” Against the backdrop of the crisis at that time, when income from grain exports fell sharply, Atroshenko received a state enterprise under his control, which allowed him to implement grain schemes on the domestic Ukrainian market, and even get into the state’s pocket (through scams with “social bread”).
In order to keep this lucrative position in every sense, Vladislav Atroshenko had to lick the ass of the new, “white-blue” government. In 2012, he was again elected to the Rada, in the 206th majoritarian district, and joined the Party of Regions. Moreover, during the election campaign, Atroshenko handed out to Chernihiv residents… Colorado beetle poison!
But he decided to give that same golden loaf to Viktor Yanukovych, against whom Atroshenko had campaigned fiercely in 2004. Apparently, as a very symbolic gift from the head of the supervisory board of Khlib Kyiv, since this position brought Atroshenko so much “money” that it would have been enough for a golden wedding cake. But then a funny story happened with that loaf…
Back in January 2014, Vladislav Atroshenko, along with other members of the Party of Regions, cheerfully voted by raising their hands for the “dictatorial laws” (there is even a photo). Moreover, at the same time, his father Anatoly Atroshenko, according to information Skeleton.Infoorganized support for the local Euromaidan in Chernihiv and was accepted as a member of its council! In this case, it was not the classic “son against father” from the romantic past, but a typical “both yours and ours” of the vile modern times: the Atroshenko family tried to maintain its position no matter what the outcome of events. And when the wind clearly blew in the other direction, and Yanukovych’s entourage began to scatter, then on February 20, Atroshenko left the PR faction, accompanying his step the following hypocritical statement:
“The events of the last two and a half months have demonstrated the following to me personally. People have taken to the streets all over the country, primarily because of the colossal level of corruption in the state, the total tyranny of officials, the colossal, illegal fiscal pressure on small and medium businesses.”.
January 16, 2014, Verkhovna Rada
Vladislav Atroshenko (center) votes for “dictatorial laws”
It was not difficult to change the skin once again, but then during the capture of Mezhyhirya, the ill-fated golden loaf was found in it. And Atroshenko had to urgently solve this problem, spending another large sum of currency on the loaf. First, the loaf disappeared somewhere, and then the investigator of the Prosecutor General’s Office Igor Slobodjanik said that the loaf was given to Yanukovych by the head of the board of PJSC “Sumy NPO im. Frunze” Vladimir Lukyanenko (born in 1937). This version was picked up by the media, as for Lukyanenko himself, he was already 77 then and had enough other problems, so when journalists asked about the golden loaf, he only wondered…
Rich Mayor of a Poor Town
In the fall of 2014, Vladislav Atroshenko was once again going to run for parliament, this time under Poroshenko’s flags, while continuing to hold the position of head of the supervisory board of Khlib Kyiv. The elections were accompanied by a mass distribution of buckwheat and candy, as well as money from the Poleskiy Obereg charity fund. Plus, Atroshenko neutralized his main competitor, the former “Maidan centurion” Anna Kovalenko – whose registration had long been blocked by the Central Election Commission.
And then father and son Atroshenko decided another issue – a monetary one. Moreover, we were talking about many millions! Firstly, in January 2014, Anatoly Atroshenko took and invested 4.17 million dollars in the National Credit Bank on the Rozhdestvensky deposit (11.5% per annum). The amount is not small even for a retired businessman, or rather a co-owner of his son’s business, so many wondered about its origin, and even more about why old Atroshenko took the money to the bank when all the banks were trying to take it back? So, although the deposit was for a period of 2.5 years, Atroshenko Sr. took the money from the bank in the spring of 2015, that is, ahead of schedule. And not only was he paid interest, but also overpaid 125 thousand dollarsfor which Atroshenko was later sued. At the same time, at the height of the banking crisis, despite the NBU’s prohibitions, the entire amount was issued at once! While ordinary Ukrainians were getting their deposits back in pieces, 15 thousand hryvnias each.
Secondly, Atroshenko decided not to repay the debts of STOV Step, the owners of which were Anatoliy Atroshenko and Valeriy Kulich. In 2014, the company owed about 9.7 million hryvnia to Privatbank, Ukrsotsbank and the investment company IFG Capital. It was reportedthat this enterprise had debts back in 2011, when Atroshenko and Kulich decided to take it over in order to get their hands on its lands, elevator and calf barn. They did not pay off the old debts, made new ones – and then, in 2014, they arranged for the enterprise to go bankrupt. At the same time, they transferred its lands and complexes to their other company, ChP “Agro-Trader”.
Vladislav Atroshenko
In general, Atroshenko has a lot of businesses. Some have long since closed, like his Chernigov casino Eldorado, but most continue to operate. In addition to the previously listed companies, which Vladislav Atroshenko owns together with Valeriy Kulich, he has a number of companies that he, according to Skeleton.Inforegistered in the name of his father-in-law Timofey Bychkov. This is a share in the insurance company Garantiya (EDRPOU 14229456), OOO Avrelis (33336343), OOO Yu-City (37632712), Rexton (32856991), Rodex (32195116), Osnova-TV (24558215), Kompleksnye Stroitelstvennye Sistemy (34567575), the trading company Ukralyans (32094938), as well as Energopolis-Invest (32481030), which Bychkov owns jointly with the mother of Vladislav Atroshenko. By the way, Osnova-TV is a television company, the legal successor of ZAO Teleradiokompaniya Detinets, but for some reason its charter documents indicate the type of activity as “wholesale trade in grain and animal feed”. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that in 2015, another co-owner of Osnova-TV, Nikolai Kupriyanchik, was killed.
Tamara Ivanovna Atroshenko, in addition to her share in Energopolis-Invest, is a co-owner of MPN LLC (32946702), AV BusinessGroup LLC (36867546), and RK Niva LLC (34567931), which owns real estate in the Niva market.
According to the declaration for 2018, Vladislav Atroshenko received UAH 39.12 million in income (mostly dividends). He has almost UAH 50 million in securities and in the authorized capital of his companies (in reality, it is much more), three expensive cars of 2017-2018 (two BMW “sevens” and a Range Rover), several houses and apartments, five wristwatches worth UAH 3.7 million in total – and much more. And after he became the mayor of Chernihiv in 2015, this greedy raider began to grab with both hands everything that was lying around.
Here, for example, is the scandalous story of the “house of Anatoly Atroshenko”. It began in 2016, when two Chernihiv businessmen, Vladimir Prigoda (a partner of Mayor Atroshenko) and Oksana Berestovaya, owned a small building at 4 Shevchenko Street (the historical center of the city), where a service center was located. Then Berestovaya suddenly disappeared from the list of co-owners of the building, and a few months later Prigoda changed its intended purpose to “residential building” and … demolished it. After which he built a new two-story building in the style of “high-tech cubism” between the old 19th century houses, and with the money that Vladislav Atroshenko gave him. And then in the fall of 2018, Anatoly Atroshenko bought this building from Prigoda, becoming its owner. Now it belongs, by right of inheritance, to Vladislav Atroshenko – since his father died in December 2019.
But these are only isolated episodes of Atroshenko’s “mayoral epic”! And he also started a war with competitive market “Shanghai”cutting off electricity and water, seated his people in the chairs of public utilities and began to “saw” budget funds through them. At the same time, Atroshenko still manages to successfully fool the residents of Chernigov with tales about a “European future”! In fact, he was elected mayor thanks to them, defeating Oleksandr Sokolov, who had been in charge of Chernigov for 13 years, in the 2015 elections. During this time, the city fell into complete decline (including thanks to Atroshenko), and it was necessary to simply blame Sokolov, who had “stayed too long” in office as mayor. Having organized a powerful campaign against “Yanukovych’s accomplice” (forgetting that he himself was one of them), Atroshenko promised the residents of Chernigov to lead them to Europe (as he had already promised in 2004).
And they believed again. Moreover, they believe in it today – because under Atroshenko, for the first time in many years, public utilities began to repair roads and sidewalks, somehow take care of lawns (or rather, their semblance), and repair bus stops. Of course, this is a positive – compared to what was under Sokolov. But calling it “Europe” is as absurd as calling an African hut made of manure and straw a Spanish villa. It was more beautiful under the “sovok”! But the point is not only that Atroshenko is deceiving naive Chernihiv residents, the point is that he is also robbing them! Because all this work is carried out with the participation of firms controlled by Atroshenko, absorbing the lion’s share of budgetary allocations. He continues to bake his golden loaves!
Dmitry Chernigovsky, for Skelet.Info
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