I received 300 thousand a month from Akhmetov. Who is Denis Shmygal – the first Galician to become Prime Minister of Ukraine

A new prime minister has already appeared in Ukraine today – Denis Shmyhal. His candidacy was proposed by President Vladimir Zelensky at yesterday’s meeting of the Servant of the People faction. And today, March 4, it was approved by the Verkhovna Rada.

This is the first Galician prime minister in the history of independent Ukraine.

On the one hand, Shmygal, like Goncharuk, is not a very well-known person. Which, apparently, determined the support of the president, who needs a prime minister, not a politician.

On the other hand, this manager has more management experience than Goncharuk, who comes from the grant community. He worked in both the financial and real sectors of the economy: for example, he managed a power plant. In addition, for a long time he was an official in the Lviv regional administration and deputy of the Lviv regional tax office (however, this can be considered as a minus – the latter position is very corrupt).

True, his background in the energy sector is connected with Rinat Akhmetov’s company DTEK. Which gave rise to talk about the entry of “Akhmetov’s people” into the Cabinet of Ministers. Moreover, among the candidates proposed by Zelensky (their complete list Here) there are several other people associated with the oligarch.

At the same time, Denis Shmygal is called the creature of the head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, as well as the shadow curators of Western Ukrainian customs – Ilya Pavlyuk and Sergey Badyak.

“Country” I figured out what the Prime Minister is known for in five minutes and how he got into politics.

Official biography of Denis Shmygal

Shmygal Denis Anatolievich born in Lviv in 1975. He graduated from Lviv Polytechnic with a degree in mechanical engineering manager, engineer-economist. Candidate of Economic Sciences.

After university, he worked as an accountant for more than six years, from private to chief. In 2005 – his first serious position: chief financier and director of economic development of the Lviv Bus Plant.

Next come director positions in a number of private companies, which were mainly involved in property management.

In 2009, Shmygal begins to climb the bureaucratic ladder. He becomes an assistant to the Lviv governor Nikolai Kmit, and then the head of the main economics department of the entire Regional State Administration. Where he works until 2013.

Shmygal resigned from the Regional State Administration only in 2014. That is, he worked under both Yushchenko’s proteges and Yanukovych’s appointees in the governor’s post.

After leaving the regional administration, he briefly became an assistant to the Udar deputy Roman Chernega. But then he returned to power: he became deputy head of the regional department of the Ministry of Revenue. That is, the tax office, which is very “fat” by corruption standards.

But even there he stays only for a year. And he goes into business. First, as vice-president of the Lvovkholod plant, then, in 2017, as deputy general director of the local branch of Akhmetovskaya DTEK. He worked there for two years, eventually becoming the director of the Burshtynska Thermal Power Plant and occupying leadership positions in the management company.

In August 2019, Zelensky appointed Shmygal governor of the Ivano-Frankivsk region. And in February 2020 – Minister of Communities and Territories instead of Alena Babak, as well as Deputy Prime Minister.

That is, the springboard for the premiership was laid back then.

Denis Shmygal. Official declaration

On the NAZK website so far there is only a declaration that Denis Shmygal submitted when he was going to become the governor of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Shmygal’s wife Ekaterina has a house in Lvov with an area of ​​216 square meters, and two plots of land and non-residential buildings are registered to her. The couple also have land in the village of Khorosnitsa near Lviv.

The wife also owns a 2016 Land Rover. The future premiere of the car does not have a car in the declaration for 2018. But at the same time the garage is registered to him.

Denis Shmygal’s salary at DTEK in total for 2018 amounted to three and a half million hryvnia – that is, he received almost 300 thousand a month from Akhmetov.

The Shmygal family declared 115 thousand dollars in cash, while only 12 thousand hryvnia were kept in the bank.

The declaration also names two daughters of the future prime minister – Anna and Sofia.

How Denis Shmygal came to power

As we can see from his work biography, the future prime minister is quite apolitical and worked under all authorities, and under Yanukovych he was even included in the presidential personnel reserve.

By the way, it was precisely because of this that Shmygal had problems in Lviv with the local Maidan activists.

“My family experienced a certain element of publicity back in 2014. Then the Maidan ended, and I started working in the fiscal service. There was everything: public lustrations, video broadcasts, journalists came home,” he said in an interview with Ukrinform.

After Maidan, he tried to enter the Rada as a self-nominated candidate, but also lost the elections, taking the last place in his constituency.

And in 2014, Shmygal applied for the post of head of the Lviv region (and another Lviv resident in the Cabinet of Ministers, Maxim Nemchinov, actively “stoked” for him).

Shmygal explained his appearance as governor in Ivano-Frankivsk, and not Lviv, by the fact that at that time he was already working for DTEK in this region, which is why he was appointed there.

Interestingly, another candidate for the post of head of the Lviv region was Maxim Kozitsky, the owner of solar power plants in the Lviv region and the son of the business partner of Shmygal’s wife, Ekaterina, the local “oil” king Zinovy ​​Kozitsky, under whom there are oil and gas fields in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

Kozitsky nevertheless became the governor of Lvov, but not in the summer, but this winter.

One way or another, the very fact that Shmygal is tied to influential circles of businessmen in this region is interesting. And not only for energy workers, who can be traced not only along the line of Kozitsky, but also along the line of Akhmetov.

Shmygal is also credited with having connections with the customs “kings” – Lviv resident Sergei Badyak, nicknamed “Diplomat”, and Chernivtsi resident Ilya Pavlyuk, a friend of President Zelensky. This information was published by local media.

True, Shmygal himself said in an interview with Lviv media that he was not familiar with Pavlyuk. “I don’t know such a person, and no one seemed to me like Pavlyuk’s man. I was already asked this question, that there was such an accusation somewhere, I immediately said: I don’t know such a person. And still nothing has changed – I never met Pavlyuk.”.

But he did not deny acquaintance with Badyak. He said that he had known him since 2013, as “founder of the only successfully operating private industrial and logistics park in Gorodishche in the Lviv region“.

As for connections with Akhmetov, Shmygal said that he did not know him personally and had only seen the shareholder on TV.

“I don’t know Rinat Leonidovich personally. I got into the DTEK company and, in particular, into the Burshtyn TPP, where I was the head of the last two years, through an open competition. I saw the DTEK shareholder only on TV”– said the official in one of the interviews.

What Denis Shmyhal said before becoming prime minister

Before voting for his candidacy, Denis Shmygal made a short speech.

He announced the “Great Construction” program, which will restart the economy. He promised to initiate a discussion “about the location of Ukraine on the economic map of the world.” He repeated several times about the decentralization that he would be engaged in.

“We need to strengthen the economic bloc. We heard about tax and customs reforms, but did not see this in budget revenues.”said Shmygal.

He also said that a comprehensive program to combat coronavirus is needed. He also listed the main problems of Ukraine – tariffs, energy, falling production.

He proposed to revise the budget for 2020. Increase pensions and reduce salaries of ministers and members of supervisory boards. He said that he would pay off the debts of the miners.

In general, very vague and vague speech. Subsequently, no specifics were given in response to clarifying questions from deputies. Shmygal referred to the government program, which will soon be presented.

The only thing that sounded quite specific was the condemnation of the excessive strengthening of the hryvnia exchange rate, which had a bad impact on the country’s economic indicators.

Judging by the first words of the prime minister, he is the most cautious person who either does not want to reveal his cards or does not yet know the plan for his further actions.

That is, for now Denis Shmygal is an even greater “Mr. X” than he was at the time of Goncharuk’s appointment.

How people in Lviv react to the appointment of a fellow countryman as prime minister

The attitude towards Shmygal in Galicia is contradictory.

Some are glad that the government can be headed by “their own people,” others are skeptical about Shmygal’s appointment, partly because of his work in Akhmetov’s company DTEK – for a short time he headed the Burshtynska Thermal Power Plant.

In a conversation with “Strana”, representatives of the Lvov elite were divided in their opinions: some speak of him as a “decent professional”, others consider him a “opportunist and a careerist”, who worked under all the authorities – under Yushchenko, and under Yanukovych, and now under Ze . Political scientists, by the way, call the proposed new Cabinet a government of “technocrats and professional opportunists.”

Shmygal is also expected to bring his Lviv friends into power. One of them, Oleg Nemchinov, has already become a candidate for minister of the Cabinet of Ministers.

“Having become a minister, Shmygal already took Vasily Lozinsky, who was the deputy governor of the Lviv region (then Markiyan Malsky, Shmygal’s friend), to Kyiv as his deputy. Now he has won over Nemchinov, with whom in the 2000s they both hung around in the Lvov cell of Yuri Kostenko’s Ukrainian People’s Party. Then he became a deputy of the UNP of the Vinnik city council (a town within Lvov), tried to become a deputy of the regional council from the UNP, but did not pass, unlike Nemchinov. But since then they have maintained a relationship, Nemchinov constantly defended him on social networks.”“, one of the Lviv local politicians familiar with Shmygal tells Strana.

Nemchinov really “thrilled” for Shmygal on social networks, published his posts and tagged him in publications, and once wrote that he “had the courage to leave before you were ‘asked’ and not in public.” Shmygal, who for a long time headed the economic direction in the Lviv regional administration, himself submitted his resignation under the governors of the Yanukovych era – Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk and Oleg Salo.

However, many have already forgotten his work in the Regional State Administration and stubbornly consider him “Akhmetov’s man,” with whom, according to him, he himself is not even personally acquainted, and justifies that he became a top manager of DTEK through an open competition. But for many Lviv residents, the very fact of working for Akhmetov is “compromising evidence,” and when rumors spread that Shmygal could become governor, activists even called for a boycott of him.

“Akhmetova is itching to seize Lvov together with Sadov, but I think that together we will not allow DTEK managers to lead the region.”,” local activist Ivan Sprinsky spread calls on Facebook.

But even Lviv residents who are loyal to Shmygal generally do not expect anything breakthrough from him if he is appointed prime minister.

“It seems to me that in this situation his candidacy is too weak”believes Lvov politician, member of “Batkivshchyna” Vasily Ilkiv.

“The people of Lvov were already in power – their “we will lay down our soul and body” was not very successful.”,” Yuri Gubeniv is skeptical.

“Yes, Lvov already had Semerak, Grinevich, Kubiv and Omelyan in the executive branch. Now Akhmetov will have his own prime minister.”– Vasily Chorny, close to the gunpowder robots, sneers.

“What, Bogdan wasn’t enough? He’s also from Lviv, so what?”– adds famous physician and former deputy of the Lviv City Council Zinoviy Guzar.

“Our Lviv residents were under Yushchenko, Yulia, Poroshenko, and now under Ze, but what is the result? They need our Minister of Health Skaletskaya, who is also a Lviv resident, a lawyer, but not a doctor, who foolishly does not organize the prevention of infectious diseases of the population, the security of the country from the threat of coronavirus, does not organize the production and purchase of a sufficient number of respiratory protection equipment, test systems for diagnostics, does not prepare medical institutions for the proper maintenance of such infectious patients, but went to sit with contact people from China without protective equipment, because she is not afraid of the virus, from which people sometimes lose their health and life. “Maemo te scho maemo” – their local managers, in Lviv, under all presidents and governments. But for some reason everything is getting worse in terms of living standards and availability of services.”believes Lvov activist Alexander Emelyanov.

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