Gennady Vasiliev: where did the father of the prosecutor’s mafia go?

It is thanks to him that the name of the “Donetsk people” aroused fear among Ukrainian entrepreneurs for so many years, and anger and indignation among concerned citizens. Gennady Vasilyev turned the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, which was supposed to guard the rule of law and rights, into the most powerful, sophisticated and cruel machine of raider takeovers. But his greed was so great that he went beyond not only the law, but also state borders – becoming almost the first Ukrainian raider in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).

Gennady Vasiliev. The beginning of “glorious” deeds

Vasiliev Gennady Andreevich was born on October 3, 1953 in Donetsk, then still called Stalino. It was a typical city family of that time: the father worked as an engineer, the mother as a nurse, and their sons went to high school, after which they played football in the yard. And then a certain story happened to the eldest son Alexander (born October 29, 1951), about which the Vasilyev family kept silent, but a trace of which can be found in his biography. Politicians of the old generation have not learned to “rub” their past as thoroughly as today’s “effective managers”, and therefore many intriguing inconsistencies can be found in it.

Let’s read: after graduating from school in 1969, Alexander Vasilyev entered the Donetsk Industrial College (after high school immediately into the 2nd year), in 1972 he received a diploma as an auto mechanic – and then worked at Donetskselstroy and Donbassvodstroy, in 1981 he graduated in absentia Donetsk University (Economics and planning of material and technical supplies), in 1984 he became director of Donbassvodstroy. Why wasn’t this healthy boy drafted into the army in the spring draft of 1970? At that time, there could only be one reason: trouble with the law, which was not uncommon among teenagers not only in Donbass. Perhaps this is how Alexander Vasiliev met his almost peer Akhat Bragin (born 1953), who later became famous under the nickname Alik the Greek – and then introduced his younger brother Gennady to him. Since there were rumors that the Vasilievs and Bragin had known each other since their youth, and they had in common not only the boxing section.

There is a similar oddity in the biography of his younger brother, Gennady Vasilyev. Like Alexander, Gennady entered school a year later – at that time, parents often kept “autumn” children at home until they were 7 years old. However, after graduating from school in 1971, he got a job as a worker at the Donetsk plant of commercial equipment – where he worked until the summer of 1972. At the same time, the military commissar of eighteen-year-old Gena Vasiliev does not seem to notice, although at that time two brothers who did not serve in the army were a rarity!

But then the younger brother did not follow in the footsteps of his elder: Gennady Vasiliev headed to Kharkov, where he entered the Law Institute. By the way, at the same institute in 1976-80. his future deputy Viktor Pshonka studied (Read more about him in: Victor Pshonka: the rise and fall of prosecutor Caesar). True, Pshonka did not “mow” from the army and at one time served for two years, and therefore graduated from high school at the age of 26. But Gennady Vasiliev took advantage of the opportunity (the military department) to avoid this fate, and received his prosecutor’s buttonholes at the age of 23.

His prosecutorial career was rapid. For 3 years (July 1976 – March 1979) Gennady Vasilyev grew from an intern to an assistant prosecutor of the Leninsky district of Donetsk. In May 1981, he himself headed the district prosecutor’s office, and in June 1984 he headed the investigative department of the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office. In May 1988, he became deputy prosecutor, and from December 1991, prosecutor of the Donetsk region. It is unknown who promoted Gennady Vasilyev’s career at the very beginning, but sources reported that in the mid-80s he already provided services to two Donetsk organized crime groups: Alik Grek and Gena Uzbek (Gennady Minovich Uzbek). By the way, the latter successfully survived the turbulent 90s and continues to live to this day as the honorary president of the largest Ukrainian promotion company Union Boxing Promotion (its president is Yuri Ruban, who was convicted three times in the 80s).

There is an opinion that Gennady Vasiliev was the man of the Uzbek Genes. This could explain why Vasilyev, having dealings with such people as Alik Grek and Rinat Akhmetov, did not fall under the latter, like other “Donetsk” people, maintaining his independence.

In addition, Gennady Vasilyev conducted his affairs carefully: he did not try to crush the organized crime groups under himself, as, say, the Kiev police did, and did not allow the organized crime groups to make him their “six”. Vasilyev’s brainchild was his own prosecutor’s mafia, working without brute force (if necessary, force was invited from outside), “pressing” its victims not with bats, but with checks, lawsuits and criminal cases. And the first stage of its creation ended in December 1991 with the appointment of Gennady Vasilyev to the post of prosecutor of the Donetsk region. As they said, at first, in the struggle for the seat, the “favorite” of the high authorities, Vasily Stoyko, had an advantage, but the candidacy of Gennady Vasilyev was actively “pushed” by the Greek and the Uzbek. And, having received this position, he repaid them in full – for several years he turned a blind eye to how they sawed and divided Donetsk and the region. At the same time, as they said, Vasiliev also received his share: the Maryinsky district was given under the prosecutor’s “roof”.

Marinka (today found itself on the front line of the ATO) in the early 90s blossomed with stalls, workshops and bakeries operating under the strict supervision of the prosecutor’s office and the police. At first, the entrepreneurs were glad that the “brothers” were frightening with reprisals, and even relaxed. Meanwhile, in 1993, Gennady Vasilievna decided to make his way to the Verkhovna Rada and began collecting money (from the “cooperators”) for the election campaign. Extortions increased, and one of the entrepreneurs decisively declared “enough!” – after which he became a defendant in a criminal case, which was closed only after his bakery was transferred to the person Vasiliev. Then this man came up with the idea to monopolize bread baking in the region. That’s how they said it, in 1993-94. In the Donetsk region, the bakery business of the regional prosecutor began to develop rapidly. Following this, other profitable enterprises began to be squeezed out of entrepreneurs under this scheme, and the prosecutor’s mafia realized that Marinka alone would not be enough for it.

Prosecutor’s “pagans”

Having become the prosecutor of the Donetsk region, Gennady Vasiliev acquired his own inner circle of people who played very important roles in his further very successful life. Among them, according to Skelet.Infoit is worth highlighting three people in particular.

Firstly, this Victor Nusenkis: in the 80s, a young director of the Zhdanovskaya mine, since 1987 a cooperator (carried timber from Siberia for the mines of Donbass), in 1992 the founder and owner of the Energo concern, which was primarily engaged in the coal business. Starting with the banal export of coal, Nusenkis then began to buy out mines, and also got involved in coke and privatized the Makeevka coke plant. All this required a very serious “cover,” especially since Nusenkis did not want to get involved with the bandits. So he had to seek protection from Gennady Vasiliev. He appreciated the prospects of such a “partnership” and made him his personal “client”, forbidding his subordinates to even think about “milking” Nusenkis’ business. Sources reported that in the mid-90s, Nusenkis was Vasiliev’s largest source of income, and the prosecutor not only provided him with “protection”, but also helped expand his business. Such cooperation smoothly turned into a partnership, and soon Vasiliev became a co-owner of many of Nusenkis’s companies.

Interesting fact: seriously interested in religion, Victor Nusenkis became an active sponsor of the UOC-MP and the Russian Orthodox Church, often met with bishops and metropolitans, built churches and chapels at his enterprises, and then even became a deacon (on a voluntary basis). And he infected Gennady Vasilyev with his piety, who in 1996 decided to erect an Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Kalininsky district of Donetsk. Its construction began in 1996, and the collection of “donations” took place under the patronage of the regional prosecutor’s office. It is worth noting that this was not Vasiliev’s know-how: at that time, throughout Ukraine, “for churches” and other projects, money was collected from enterprises and businessmen not only by the prosecutor’s office, but also by the tax office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Few people dared to refuse official letters sent out!

However, in this case, it was not the collection of money that was scandalous, and not even the construction of the temple – which was entrusted to a Donetsk company with the somewhat strange name “Holy Virgin Mary”. The scandalous thing was not that the Orthodox church was being built by a company with a Catholic name, the scandalous thing was that this company, created in 1994, was engaged in the semi-legal trade in smuggled gasoline. But the most scandalous thing was that on the site originally allocated for the “bishop’s garden” near the church they decided to build… the Pokrovsky commercial market.

Now it’s unlikely that anyone will remember exactly whose head this idea came to. But the scandal around the Pokrovsky market is worth listing the people involved. First of all, it is worth clarifying that in 1994 Gennady Vasilyev was elected as a people’s deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the 2nd convocation (in district No. 109), and for two whole years he combined the mandate with the post of regional prosecutor – until the new Constitution of Ukraine was adopted. At first, Vasiliev refused the position (in July 1996), since he needed the mandate (and immunity) due to strained relations with Pavel Lazarenko. However, with the resignation of Lazarenko in 1997, Vasiliev returned to Donetsk to his place. During this time, his chair was faithfully guarded by reliable assistants and deputies, who at the same time were Vasilyev’s accomplices in the prosecutor’s mafia and partners in the business that was squeezed out of people. Among them, the Kuzmin brothers-prosecutors especially stood out: Renat, Rafael and Konstantin (Read more about them in the article Renat Kuzmin: family business of lawless prosecutors). Back in 1994, assistant prosecutor of the Kyiv district of Donetsk Rafael Kuzmin was detained by Berkut while receiving a large bribe – but avoided trial and even expulsion from the ranks of the prosecutor’s office thanks to the intercession of Gennady Vasilyev. Kuzmina’s mother, who worked as an editor on a regional television channel, paid for the help, providing Vasiliev with unlimited time for election campaigning. And since then, the prosecutor’s family of the Kuzmins, already subordinate to Vasiliev in their service, became his faithful people. So, in 1997, Rafael Kuzmin was appointed assistant to the prosecutor of the Donetsk region (Vasiliev), Renat Kuzmin in the 90s was an assistant to the prosecutors of one or another district of Donetsk, and their cousin Konstantin Kuzmin made a career in the Kalininsky district of Donetsk.

Another participant in the scam was the then first deputy of the SBU Directorate for the Donetsk region, Viktor Vasilyevich Churilov (he would later make a business career at Kyivstar), who also participated in raising funds for the construction of the temple. And so in 1997, in the friendly team of Vasiliev, Kuzmins, Churilov, and also the newly appointed deputy regional prosecutor Viktor Pshonka, the idea arose to turn the church area into a market. To do this, the land was registered under the re-registered LLC “Holy Virgin Mary”, whose founders included Churilov’s son, Rafael Kuzmin and Vasiliev’s assistant Sergei Nosatov. Then a dozen more Donetsk entrepreneurs were invited to become shareholders, colorfully describing to them the prospects of the “market-temple complex” – who contributed $600 thousand to the construction. However, when the Pokrovsky market was completed in 1999, the Donetsk prosecutor’s office (already controlled by Pshonka) organized a “kid” – throwing out these shareholders from among the founders.

Ironically, this story also ended in a scam: in 2016, the new authorities of Donetsk (DPR) by decree confiscated the Pokrovsky market from the old owners and handed it over to new ones – apparently from among the “elite” of the self-proclaimed republic. After which they began to demand re-registration and new rent from entrepreneurs selling on the market.

Gennady Vasiliev. General for a year

In 1998, Gennady Vasiliev was again elected as a people’s deputy and left for Kyiv – having already left the post of prosecutor of the Donetsk region for good. He dismissed Pshonka for himself, pulled his brother Alexander Vasiliev out of an unpromising motor depot and assigned him as the head of the Control and Audit Department of the Donetsk Region. But he took Rafael Kuzmin with him, as an assistant to the people’s deputy. Over the course of 4 years, Vasilyev changed three parliamentary factions (NDP, Labor Ukraine and Independent), and in 2002 he was re-elected in the 61st district and joined the United Ukraine faction. All this time, he did not sit idly by, but actively looked for allies and patrons in Kyiv, making friends with everyone.

The efforts were not in vain: from June 2002 to November 2003, Gennady Vasiliev served as Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, and then Leonid Kuchma appointed him Prosecutor General of Ukraine to replace the dismissed Svyatoslav Piskun (which will then be restored through the court, more about it – Svyatoslav Piskun. Scandalous and unsinkabley).

Vasiliev immediately began to spread the system of his prosecutorial mafia throughout Ukraine. Although by that time the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were already mired in corruption, Vasiliev tried to unite the prosecutorial mafia into a system with general rules and a vertical hierarchy. In the process, he stationed his people from Donetsk in the capital. Thus, Renat Kuzmin became the prosecutor of Kyiv, his brother Rafael became senior assistant to the Prosecutor General, Viktor Pshonka became first deputy Prosecutor General. Together with them, the tactics of “prosecutor raiding”, worked out in the Donbass, came to Kyiv. It was she who created an extremely negative image of all “Donetsk people” and especially Viktor Yanukovych, contributing to the formation of protest grounds for the first Maidan. On December 9, 2004, the decision of the Pechersky Court of Kyiv, which upheld the complaint of Svyatoslav Piskun and his illegal dismissal by Kuchma, declared the appointment of Vasilyev as Prosecutor General illegal and actually meant his removal. This was the first such legal precedent in Ukraine.

On top of that, Vasiliev was also charged with illegally appropriating 1,700 hectares of land in the Kagarlyk district of the Kyiv region, which belonged to Penitentiary Committee No. 115. However, the case opened against him by the Prosecutor General’s Office was purely formal: as soon as the political noise subsided, the case immediately disappeared.

Vasiliev’s prosecutorial career ended here, and then on behalf of the Donetsk people, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office was “ruled” by Pshonka (Deputy Prosecutor General in 2006-2007, Prosecutor General of Ukraine in 2010-2014), Renat Kuzmin (from 2005 – Deputy Prosecutor of the Kyiv Region, from 2006 to 2013 – Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine), Rafael Kuzmin (2006-2010 – Assistant Prosecutor General) and other people appointed by Vasilyev. That is, during Yushchenko’s presidency, the prosecutor’s mafia did not go away; its key characters not only continued to work in high positions, but also climbed the career ladder! It is not surprising that in the “Pshonka years” (2010-2014), the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office was, rather, a huge and well-coordinated organized crime group.

Vasilyev himself devoted himself entirely to business, but at the same time continued to actively hold on to his deputy mandate: in 2006, 2007 and 2012, he was elected on the lists of the Party of Regions. And only once did he receive a new appointment: in April 2010, the new President Yanukovych offered Vasiliev the post of Deputy Head of the Administration. However, there Vasiliev could not get along with his boss Sergei Levochkin (Read more about him in the material: Levochkin. “Gray Cardinal” and his sister), and in February 2011 he became a Remainer, returning to parliament.

Gennady Vasiliev. Unknown billionaire

The conflict between Vasiliev and Levochkin had deep roots going back to the late 90s, when Viktor Nusenkis, who was assembling his coal and metallurgical empire, came across the same empire of Rinat Akhmetov. Then Akhmetov did not crush Nusenkis only because both Vasiliev and Gena Uzbek provided him with “protection” – and Akhmetov respects the latter very much. However, even then, some friction arose between Akhmetov’s “Donetsk” and Vasilyev’s Donetsk prosecutor’s mafia regarding the drawing of business boundaries.

For information: A few years ago on LiveJournal and Facebook of blogger Vladimir Petrov (lumpen) there was information that he worked for Gennady Vasiliev, and it was Vasiliev, in the retelling, who “taught him life.” This information has now been cleared. Or we couldn’t find her.

Nusenkis, seeing that he had nowhere else to expand in Ukraine, in 2001 turned his attention to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), to Kuzbass – having bought a stake in the Zarechnaya mine there. For comparison: Zarechnaya consistently produced 5 million tons of coal per year, while the largest Ukrainian mine named after. Zasyadko produced a maximum of 4 million tons. But Nusenkis actively bought new mines, and by 2011 his enterprises in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) were producing 8.5 million tons of coal per year. And this is not counting Nusenkis’ coke-chemical and metallurgical business, as well as his Ukrainian enterprises! However, he gradually forgot about Ukraine, being carried away by the expansion of business in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) – Nusenkis even moved to live in the Moscow region. This may have greatly alarmed Gennady Vasiliev, who decided to split the business he and Nusenkis had together.

This was very difficult, since Gennady Vasiliev never officially declared the presence of a large business. What was quite understandable: having spent years squeezing out what belonged to others, registering it for offshore companies and proxies, Vasiliev looked like such a modest, kind guy, who in his life, at most, only received small bribes. However, behind this simplicity hid one of the richest people in Ukraine. According to Focus magazine, in 2008 Gennady Vasiliev’s fortune was $575 million. And the Korrespondent magazine claimed that the size of assets controlled by Vasiliev reaches $1.66 billion. A significant part of which is his joint business with Victor Nusenkis. And so Vasiliev decided to take his share, and out of habit, try to squeeze the share from Nusenkis.

Their disagreements began in 2007, when Donetskstal CJSC (Donetsk Metallurgical Plant, Yasinovatsky Coke, Makeevkoks CJSC, Pokrovskoye Mine Management OJSC) placed a deposit of 50 million dollars in Kreditprombank, and then took out a loan from this bank of 80 million dollars secured by this deposit. The fact that the loan issued was one and a half times the amount of the collateral was explained simply: both Donetskstal and Kreditprombank belonged to the structures of Nusenkis and Vasilyev. That is, this was a typical scheme for Ukrainian banks, when they issued huge loans “without repayment” to their own enterprises – and then asked the state for money for refinancing (Privatbank was the most successful in this). By 2009, Kreditprombank’s debt reached $400 million!

So, what’s interesting: it was Levochkin at the end of 2010 who achieved the introduction of state supervision over Kreditprombank, preparing it for absorption by the structures of Dmitry Firtash – who wanted to enter through the bank into CJSC Donetskstal and its mines. This is what caused a quarrel between Levochkin and Vasiliev. But at the same time, Vasiliev and Nusenkis did not get along, and their long-standing relationship began to burst at the seams. Perhaps the fact that Vasiliev, who had lost his position, was simply no longer needed by Nusenkis, who by that time was developing business in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), also played a role. And in 2011, on Vasiliev’s initiative, they began to divide the business. It is worth clarifying that this business was legally registered in the name of the following offshore companies:

• INTERCONSULTING LLC
• FINTEST TRADING EIMITED
• IONOSCOPOS SERVICES EIMITED
• SALESI INVESTMENTS LIMITED
• CARLIT INVESTMENTS LTD
• MUNGISDALE ENTERPRISES LIMITED
• CHELCO MANAGEMENT SERVICES LIMITED
• BRONTE TRADING LIMITED
• CROZON ENTERPRISES LIMITED

All of them were shareholders of Donetskstal CJSC and the Energo concern, the latter being both the owner of Kreditprombank and a number of Russian assets. Vasiliev would hardly have been able to develop his part of this business (without Nusenkis’ talents), but he probably expected to sell it profitably. There were buyers: the same Rinat Akhmetov, who had been looking askance at Nusenkis’ business since the late 90s. But, let’s say, in terms of production and export of coke (1.4 million tons), Donetskstal enterprises were one and a half times faster than Akhmetov’s plants. And Akhmetov also desperately needed access to the Russian market (Kuzbass). And he figured, first getting some of it, then squeezing out the rest. Thus, Gennady Vasiliev decided to betray and “throw away” his companion Nusenkis, whom he had defended for so many years from the same Akhmetov. It is interesting that Gennady Uzbek also supported him in this – apparently, he also had some shares in this business.

And so Gennady Vasiliev, together with Konstantinos Papunidis (the Cypriot custodian of their offshore companies), began filing lawsuits in the courts of Ukraine, Cyprus and the UK, demanding the transfer of 50% of the shares of all Nusenkis companies to them. At the same time, the lawsuits also demanded the freezing of all assets until the end of the proceedings – and this threatened the enterprises with financial collapse and even a shutdown of production. Unexpectedly, Yanukovych himself intervened in the conflict on the side of Nusenkis, who personally visited the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant and Makeyevka Coke Plant – assuring their teams that he would not allow a “raider takeover.” This put a long ellipsis in the case – and caused a quarrel between Vasilyev and Yanukovych.

But having lost the war for Ukrainian assets, Gennady Vasiliev started it for Russian ones. And they were huge, because the Energo concern was the owner of the following Russian enterprises:

• JSC Mine Zarechnaya
• OJSC “Mine” Karagaylinskaya “,
• Georesurs LLC, U-Trans LLC
• LLC “Gramoteinskoe CEMM”
• LLC “Mine Administration Karagailynskoe”
• LLC “Krasnaya Gorka Mine”
• LLC “Serafimovskoe”
• LLC “U-Trans”

In October 2012, Vasiliev filed claims with the Moscow Arbitration Court, then with the Arbitration Court of the Kemerovo Region. They used bribery of judges and the use of the help of Russian raiders (the Regionservice company of Sergei Uchitel), and in 2013 several decisions were made in favor of Vasiliev. However, in 2014, his old friend, the “eternal” governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev, who has enormous authority in the Kremlin itself, came to Nusenkis’ defense. Checks were carried out, a number of judges were removed and disqualified, and the court decisions were appealed. Thus, by the summer of 2014, Gennady Vasiliev was defeated in the battle for business in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), and no longer had a chance to regain his previous position in Ukraine – after which he disappeared from the attention of the media for a long time. Apparently, now he prefers to live somewhere quietly and “without reflection” on his savings, without trying to take away other people’s. This is probably the most reasonable thing that someone who has seriously “upset” so many people in their life can do.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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