Firemark Sergei: “taker”, “supervisor” and “servant of the people”. PART 2

CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Sergei Firemark: “privatizer”, “supervisor” and “servant of the people”. PART 1

In 2004, Firemark became the acting director of Khartsyzsk JSC Silur (the second Ukrainian manufacturer of ropes), which was merged with LLC Stalkanat into PrJSC PO Stalkanat-Silur. It has become a monopoly manufacturer of rope products in Ukraine, under the full control of Firemark, Nemirovsky, Rodin and Becker. All territories and buildings of the Odessa plant, valued at 10 million hryvnia (with a real value of at least 100 million, at 2001 prices), became the property of Stalkanat-Silur, which was then merged with the Stalmetiz enterprise of Rodin and Becker. Most of them were used for production, and the rest were leased to commercial structures, including their own companies: Ecology LLC, Parus LLC, PKF Most-met, Private Enterprise Alimar, Private Enterprise Dis, LLC “Manar”, OJSC “Odesnefteprodukt”, CJSC “Evarmet”, CJSC “Rezon”.

It is known that in 2004, Silur OJSC in Khartsyzsk was generously ceded to Firemark and Nemirovsky by the main oligarch of Donbass, Rinat Akhmetov, who considered this enterprise not too important for himself. But then, a few years later, either Akhmetov himself or Yuri Ivanyushchenko set their sights on both the Khartsyz and Odessa rope plants. At least, this is how Firemark and Nemirovsky explained the sudden “attack” of the prosecutor’s office on their enterprise, which occurred in February 2012.

Then employees of the prosecutor’s office, with the support of the security forces of the Organized Crime Control Department, conducted searches at the plant itself (in the management office), as well as at the apartments of its leaders. Firemark, Nemirovsky and Shemyakin were charged with Articles 191-5 (appropriation of property on an especially large scale) and 218 (fictitious bankruptcy) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In addition, the prosecutor’s office received information from the NSU, which allowed it to begin an investigation on suspicion of concealing profits and evading taxes. The case smelled like a fry: Shemyakin was arrested immediately, but Faermark and Nemirovsky received a warning from familiar security officials, so on the day of the searches they were already in Tel Aviv. Nemirovsky rented a room at the Sheraton Hotel, Firemark settled on a nearby street. Moreover, they took their families with them! Let us emphasize: this was the second time that Firemark and Nemirovsky fled with their families (the first time was from Krivoy Rog), and this time the reason was already completely obvious. By the way, this flight to Tel Aviv revealed the fact that they had a second citizenship (Israeli).

Due to the fact that both of them were deputies of the Odessa regional council from the opposition “Front of Change”, and Nemirovsky was even the chairman of its regional organization, they immediately turned to the bloc leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk for support. And they received it immediately, since Nemirovsky already had a reputation as “Yatsenyuk’s wallet.” It should be noted here that, according to Skelet.InfoFiremark, as a business partner and associate of Nemirovsky, was also the same wallet – he just usually kept in the shadow of his companion.

The entire leadership of the Front for Change, including Arseniy Yatsenyuk personally, joined the defense of Firemark and Nemirovsky, and Gennady Moskal also took an active part in the case. The case was immediately given a political overtones. At first, Nemirovsky stated that Stalkanat was trying to take Ivan Avramov, known as the “watcher of Odessa” from Yuri Ivanyushchenko, away from him. At the same time, the entire Front for Change insisted that this was a political attack on the bloc ahead of the elections. In addition, Nemirovsky turned to unknown patrons outside Ukraine for protection, and there is information that the issue was resolved through Chabad and its connections in the United States. In general, after two months all charges against them were dropped, and Firemark and Nemirovsky victoriously returned to Odessa.

Port Watcher and Amber Schemes

For their defense in the “Stalkanata” case, Firemark and Nemirovsky gave Yatsenyuk a good account of the party treasury, so he gave them passing place No. 39 on the list of the united “Batkivshchyna” bloc. Nemirovsky gave the lucky ticket to his partner, and he himself remained in Odessa “on the farm.” He was not bored for long: let us repeat that in the spring of 2014 Turchinov appointed him governor, and if Nemirovsky had not been so prominent in the events of May 2 (to which he was directly related), he could have ruled the region longer. Firemark in the Rada became the first deputy of the Committee on the Industrial and Investment Commission, and also joined the commission on privatization issues – which allowed him to henceforth control “problematic privatizations”, and not only defend his own, but also participate in the raider seizure of someone else’s. But he rarely appeared in the Rada itself, only on personal matters, and was remembered there for his “Franck Muller Long Island 1000SC” watch worth 15 thousand dollars.

While the parliamentary opposition was fighting the Yanukovych regime, Firemark was doing something more important for himself – taking control of the Odessa ports. This matter really took off for him after the second Maidan, since the entourage of the new Prime Minister Yatsenyuk received, among other things, control over the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. Maxim Burbak was then appointed to this post, close to Yatsenyuk as much as Igor Kononenko is close to Petro Poroshenko. In just six months, Bourbak created such monstrous corruption that it has not yet been possible to completely eradicate it. In addition to appointing his people to key positions, Burbak placed his “supervisors” everywhere – and one of them was Sergei Firemark, who took over the ports of Odessa.

The fact that Firemark “resolves issues” in the ports and takes bribes for this was then directly stated by another Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Vladimir Shulmeister, who said that Maxim Burbak personally introduced him to Firemark.

It’s interesting that Schulmeister has now joined Zelensky’s team, where Firemark has also joined, while Burbak is a fierce opponent of the new president of Ukraine. But this is understandable: the “People’s Front” split, Avakov’s group, which includes Firemark, supported Zelensky, while Yatsenyuk’s group remains outside.

But let’s return to the Odessa port “Yuzhny”. At the end of 2016, a major corruption scandal broke out around him, barely extinguished by the common efforts of the Popular Front, but not forgotten by journalists. What happened? A tender was announced for dredging works, the size of the fund is one billion hryvnia! And so Sergei Firemark set his sights on them. To implement the scheme, he attracted his “team” consisting of: Yuri Nakonechny (acting chairman of the USPA), Viktor Migalatyuk (deputy chairman of the USPA for security), Maxim Shirokov (head of the Yuzhny port) and his personal financial assistant Alexander Lazanyuk. These people contributed to the fact that the Jan De Nul company won the tender for the work. And here, with revelations, the “truth teller” Sergei Leshchenko came to the podium, who in fact only lobbied the interests of the Van Oord company that lost the competition, but, nevertheless, revealed the scandalous truth.

Firstly, it turned out that “Jan De Nul” won the competition with violations, since it offered a higher price (989 million hryvnia) than the other participant (901 million). And secondly, the winner of the competition was not the famous Belgian company, but its subsidiary company of the same name, opened in Ukraine specifically for this tender, and having an interesting composition of shareholders – which included the Cypriot offshore companies Medit Consortium and Havoret Investments ( second violation of the law), as well as… Sergey Firemark! Who apparently received his share as a kickback for lobbying the interests of the company. He even managed to appoint his former assistant Andrei Rozov as director of the Ukrainian representative office of the company.

The scandal became loud, the tender was canceled (in the end, a new tender was won by China), the Ukrainian office of Jan De Nul was searched and supporting documents were seized. Because of this, Firemark lost its status as the “supervisor” of the Odessa ports, since the people who were once appointed by Burbak and Vaskov lost their positions. But Firemark himself escaped with a slight fright – he was again defended by his party comrades, and Anton Gerashchenko tried hardest of all, who in the heat of the moment “learned” that Cyprus is not an offshore zone, which means that the law was not broken! It’s strange that such nonsense was concocted by the adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs. We also note that Gerashchenko is Avakov’s trusted man, which means that even then Firemark was a member of his group.

But for the support of Avakov’s group, it was necessary to pay something (and contribute something to the synagogues too), and in search of new sources of income, Firemark turned to amber mining. In this he was helped by people’s deputies from the “Deputy Control” group Maxim Polyakov and Vitaly Kupriy, whom Firemark also used in his last attack in the war for control of the ports. In particular, they organized a noisy campaign against the new Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Omelyan, trying to shift the responsibility for corruption in the port of Yuzhny. And when Omelyan appointed Latvian Raivis Veckagans as head of the USPA (this began the cleansing of the USPA from Fakrmark-Burbak’s people), Polyakov accused him of collaborating with a Russian company. In general, the fight was dirty and tough.

However, then Polyakov himself became the object of a criminal investigation under the so-called. the case of the “amber deputies”, together with the scandalous Borislav Rosenblat. Both were stripped of parliamentary immunity and arrested in the summer of 2017, and at that time this scandal still fueled the fading hope of Ukrainians that the fight against corruption in Ukraine was not an empty phrase. The hope was not justified: Rosenblat and Polyakov were eventually released on bail, and their case died out. But what is most interesting is that they never testified against another person involved in the case of the “amber deputies” – Sergei Faermark, who was called the author of the schemes under which access to amber mining was distributed in exchange for kickbacks. And not only schemes: in February 2017, a group of people’s deputies from Odessa (Fairmark, Chekita, Deydey, Golubov, Fursin, Presman, Kivalov, etc.) unanimously did not vote for the bill on amber miningthereby failing it and preserving the corruption chaos reigning in this area.

As a result, Firemark again sat in the shadows, covered by Avakov. And now, with the help of Avakov, to whom Zelensky and his main sponsor Kolomoisky owe a lot for help during the elections, Firemark may well be elected to the Rada again on the list of the Servant of the People party. Or, at least, under its flags in one of the majoritarian districts of Odessa – since the deputies did not want to change the electoral system to a completely party one. Maybe if everyone suddenly forgets who Sergei Firemark is and what he is “famous for”.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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