Igor Markov. Criminal and Separatist

In connection with the arrest in Italy by Interpol, the name of the half-forgotten leader of the Rodina party, ex-deputy Igor Markov, has surfaced. His return to Ukraine, however, is highly doubtful. Too bad. Both the police and the prosecutor’s office can charge Igor Olegovich with many things, since his career and life were stormy and with many episodes that fall under the Criminal Code. Maybe, but will he want to? Recent events show the extraordinary “forgetfulness” of the competent authorities in relation to representatives of the previous government. Well, let’s try to remind them of Markov’s affairs.

Money has no smell

Igor Markov began his career back in the distant nineties in his native Odessa. However, back then he was known by the nicknames Maradona and Celentano. At first, he quietly sold gasoline at rented gas stations. This was a gangster business, but Igor Olegovich did not leave any traces in law enforcement agencies at that time. His career took off when he profitably married the daughter of the director of the city garbage dump. Together with his father-in-law Vasily Serykh, he opened a private enterprise “Soyuz”, which was engaged in garbage removal. This is how his family business would have gone, albeit a foul-smelling one, but Maradona’s greed ruined him. After a while, he threw his father-in-law out of the business. Literally threw him out, with the help of bandits armed with machine guns, who came to his father-in-law and took everything – equipment, property, even diesel fuel. However, for some reason, no one opened a criminal case then.

Hooligan

The first, but far from the last criminal case against Markov was opened in 2007. Then in Odessa, pro-Ukrainian forces led by Svoboda members staged a picket against the installation of a monument to Empress Catherine the Great. Igor Olegovich called his own rally. Its force was represented by strong, athletic-looking guys. Instead of polemics, a fight broke out. Ukrainian patriots were severely beaten, one of them ended up in intensive care. Markov personally participated in this action. As a result, however, two years later, the Odessa prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case against him under the article “hooliganism”. He did not appear on the summons, the Minister of Internal Affairs said that he fled abroad. And already in 2010, the case was closed “due to lack of corpus delicti”.

Murder

In 2010, the SBU became interested in Igor Olegovich. The issue was about his financing of the Antifa movement and the murder of the Sich student activist Maksym Chaika. He was killed in Odessa while leaving the Oreshek cafe. Antifa or Anti-Fascist Action is a pro-Russian Odessa organization; they considered Chaika a Nazi. Later, the “anti-fascists” claimed that the student attacked them himself, and they were only defending themselves. The case was hushed up without any consequences, at least for Igor Markov.

“Political”

In 2013, the case resurfaced. Markov was served a summons and detained. At the same time, the court stripped him of his deputy mandate. The falsifications at his polling station were proven in court. But he again gathered his “supporters”, again athletic-looking, who blocked the police station where Igor Olegovich was being held. In order to unblock the station, more than a hundred Berkut, Sokol and Titan fighters were brought in. The operation lasted forty minutes, Markov was flown from Odessa to Kyiv. The Pechersk Court determined the measure of detention – arrest. He spent a year in custody, sometimes declaring and then ending a hunger strike. And a year later he was released again in connection with the return of his status as a people’s deputy. At the same time, the “supporters” in tracksuits again stormed the building, this time the Primorsky Odessa court.

VIP Separatist

Markov is one of the most active apologists of the Russian world. He is the head of the pro-Russian organizations “Patriots of the Fatherland” and “Russian Club”, he is the initiator of the “St. George’s Ribbon” and “I speak Russian” campaigns. And Igor Olegovich himself, on numerous teleconferences and in interviews, called himself a supporter of the Eurasian world and actively participated in pro-Russian conferences and other gatherings. When he was a deputy of Ukraine, he harshly criticized the signing of the agreement with the EU and any attempts at European integration. Moreover, he called for rapprochement with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and joining the Customs Union. After Euromaidan, he fled to Moscow, where he continued to denounce the Kyiv “junta” on various shows on federal Russian channels.

Igor Markov is currently under house arrest in Italy. He communicates freely with the Russian consul, although he is a Ukrainian citizen. Our law enforcement officers and diplomats are not particularly persistent in his return to his homeland. So, most likely, we will soon see Igor Olegovich again… on Russian television screens.

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info