Igor Nasalik. The criminal face of Ukraine’s energy sector
The fact that the current composition of the Verkhovna Rada is replete with criminal and controversial personnel has been known for a long time and everyone has already come to terms with it. But, instead of correcting this situation by gradually clearing its ranks, a completely different trend is observed. In April of this year, Ukraine received a very scandalous and notorious figure for the post of Minister of Energy and Coal Industry.
We are talking about Igor Nasalik, a deputy-businessman and former mayor of the city of Kalush. It was he who, as a result of “undercover” games, was put in charge of the Ministry of Energy. In the three months of leading the department, he has already managed to noticeably “inherit” and “offend” the people of Ukraine, however, it seems that Prime Minister Groysman is quite happy with this. He is not concerned about Nasalik’s attempts to place people beneficial to his business in key positions in the department, or even the fact that he is arbitrarily negotiating with the leaders of the DPR/LPR on the purchase of coal from the occupied territories. A fearless personality, however… Yes, this is not strange, especially considering his past “exploits”.
Igor Nasalik. “Beyond the Law”
Was born Nasalik Igor Stepanovich in November 1962 in the Kirovograd region. However, fate brought him to Western Ukraine, where he first received a higher education at the Ivan Franko Lviv State University (optoelectronic systems engineer), and then took his first significant career steps. After graduation, he worked for about two years as a leading specialist at the Microelectronics Center in Ulyanovsk. Igor Stepanovich was not attracted to working a lot and physically hard, and he set out to conquer “economic peaks.” In 1992-1995 he worked as an adviser on economic issues at the Korona (Lviv) and Sapphire (Rohatyn) enterprises.
His business went up sharply after he created and headed the industrial production corporation Technoinvestcenter in 1995.
It was from this enterprise that Nasalik’s march to big money, earned legally and semi-legally, began. In particular, in his business affairs, Igor Stepanovich always made the most of family and friendly connections. Which, by the way, he had very extensive – he had the right people in the criminal environment and among the “important” law enforcement officers of the region and even in the regional Ivano-Frankivsk tax office. It should be noted that Nasalik accumulated his initial capital through fraudulent VAT transactions related to energy exports. At that time, he worked with now famous partners – the Kalestinin brothers, Rybachok, Tretyak and Melnik.
By the time the Technoinvestcenter was created, Igor Stepanovich “fell into the circulation” of the tax authorities, because he already owned a whole network of commercial enterprises of various kinds. This is where he got into trouble with the law. His enterprises, in particular “Techno-center”, “Avtotechpostach” and “Galplast”, were subjected to massive inspections, which would have led tax officials and law enforcement officers directly to the need to arrest Nasalik. However, he, obviously sensing the heat, ran for the Verkhovna Rada and, having successfully won the elections, easily solved all his problems. By the way, because of him, even a small “war” began between the tax service and the SBU. This war was won for Igor Stepanovich by the head of department “K” of the Ivano-Frankivsk SBU, Gennady Shvydkov. In fact, he fabricated a case against the head of the local tax police, Kruglyak, began to tap his phones and monitor his every move, as a result of such actions, Kruglyak had to retreat from the investigation of Nasalik’s affairs. By the time the tax authorities had a free hand, Nasalik had already become a people’s deputy. A little later, his main office, with all the documentation necessary for the tax authorities, “unexpectedly” burned down, and only ashes remained from the documents incriminating Igor Stepanovich in tax fraud.
While Nasalik was busy with elections and showdowns with the tax authorities, his business was gaining momentum. By 1998, “Technoinvestcenter” was reformatted into “Techno-Center”, which, in turn, began to create a huge number of SPDs, which, after working for a year and successfully evading taxes, were successfully closed. In order to quietly launder money from these “temporary enterprises,” Igor Stepanovich used the Dniester Bank (this bank, by the way, actually belonged to affiliates, which allowed them to use it in their frauds as they pleased).
After Nasalik became a people’s deputy, his companies began to fare even better, and he, “feeling the power,” began to play at a more serious level. Since 1999, its structures began to engage in massive purchases of energy resources from national producers and sell them abroad at inflated prices. In addition, after their sale, virtually all profits were transferred abroad through a number of fictitious enterprises. Thus, Nasalik made a fortune for himself, which is successfully stored in his offshore accounts.
“People’s Deputy Defector”
Igor Stepanovich’s political career developed very rapidly. In 1998, he became a people’s deputy in the 85th constituency, and in 2002 he was re-elected to the Rada, but from the 86th constituency. Both of them are located in Nasalik’s business domain – in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Igor Nasalik is a real “frog-defector”; after he understood a little about the situation in the political arena of Ukraine, his march through the parties began. In 2002, he was in the then opposition “Our Ukraine”, realizing that he did not want to fight for a just cause – he ran over to the regionals (“Regions of Ukraine”), but he didn’t like it there either, and in March 2005 he was already under flags of the Ukrainian People’s Party faction.
On the wave of aggressive sentiment towards the “regional” deputies, he had to retreat. This time he ended up in the faction of Yulia Tymoshenko, but even here he did not achieve much: just before the elections, he ran away from the party to “defend the ecology of Ukraine” in the Eco+25% party, which, by the way, included his Western Ukrainian mentor is the famous oligarch Pyotr Dyminsky. By the way, the main sponsor of the party was Vitaly Gaiduk (which at that time created the Evolution Media holding, which made the newspaper Comments: led by Gaiduk’s shadow adviser Sergei Skrypnik and the current deputy from the BPP Vadim Denisenko, sites proua.com.ua, the editor-in-chief of which was the current editor of Our Money Alexey Shalaysky, as well as website ugmk.info, newspaper Kiev Weekly. All this was headed by the former press secretary of Petro Poroshenko, Yulia Litvinova. Perhaps it was she who brought Nasalik together with Haiduk) who poured more than 30 million dollars into the election campaign. Unfortunately for him, he realized too late that they wanted to throw him into a Dyminsky-Nasalik pairing. As a result, the party failed, and Gaiduk did not receive any dividends, harboring a grudge against his “colleagues.” Even Dyminsky did not know that Nasalik had prepared his way to retreat. Our Igor Stepanovich, in parallel with the parliamentary elections, took part in the elections of the local mayor of the city of Kaluga. And he was very successfully elected.
Igor Nasalik. “Mayoral period
After being elected head of the city of Kalush, Igor Nasalik began to live just like in a fairy tale. It should be noted that this city is rich in energy resources, which, if you have not forgotten, Igor Stepanovich successfully traded for many years. Local residents treat our hero differently, some idolize him and some despise him for what he did to the land that previously belonged to the city.
And so it was: on the one hand, Nasalik did not steal a bit from the local budget and, in comparison with other cities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Kalush developed very extensively, salaries were always paid on time, roads were built, and social programs were successfully implemented. But there was also a second side to his activities, which most local residents did not know about, since they simply had not encountered it. During the time when Igor Nasalik was the mayor of Kalush, there was practically no free land left in the city’s ownership, all of it was sold off or appropriated by local companies with gaskets that were connected in one way or another, with whom do you think? Of course, with Igor Stepanovich.
Over time, he got tired of purely mayoral activities, and he again got involved in politics. In 2006, he headed the regional branch of the UNP party, and in order to take the post of chairman, he removed his own friend, the then mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk Viktor Anushkevicius, from this position. Who, having lost to him in the elections, became very angry and refused to cooperate with him even in the high position of his deputy. By the way, the leader and main sponsor of the UNP, Yuri Kostenko, was very angry with Nasalik because he led his party. There was always some kind of friction between them. In particular, during Kostenko’s trip to Ivano-Frankivsk, Nasalik’s “fighters” threw eggs at him, and even shouted loud phrases like “Shame on the schismatic.”
For such purposes, Igor Stepanovich always had fighting guys. All because of his close ties with the famous crime boss “Besheny” (Igor Layuk), as well as another criminal element “Ibrahim”, who is in good standing among the Lviv criminals.
Until the end of his second term as head of Kalush, Igor Nasalik was actively preparing to return to “big politics.” And his reliance on the image of an “ardent nationalist” played a key role in his future fate. The waves of Euromaidan brought him to the VIII convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, which he probably missed.
“The third coming” to the Rada and the “sudden” post of minister
During the post-revolutionary elections to the Verkhovna Rada, Igor Nasalik entered parliament in his old 85th district, but this time from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party. According to sources, he became one of the main sponsors of the party, investing in it colossal funds that he earned as a successful businessman-mayor. There is an opinion among political experts that the post of head of the Ministry of Energy was given to him as a reward for all his numerous donations to the party fund.
There is another point of view on its purpose. There was a serious struggle between political forces for this ministerial position, because it is key to the establishment of not only energy stability, but is also key to solving most of the business problems of Ukrainian oligarchs in the energy sector. So, Igor Nasalik, despite his belonging to the president’s party, is called one of the protégés of the notorious Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. If the deputies, who are under the control of Igor Valerievich, had not voted for the new composition of the government, then it would have been approved (due to the “demarche” of the parties of Sadovoy, Lyashko and Tymoshenko). For this service, the oligarch received “his” person in the chair of the head of the Ministry of Energy. His interest in the energy sector is not unfounded, because most of his business is related to the fuel and energy sector. It was Nasalik who became a significant trump card in the fight against the energy group of companies of the now deceased people’s deputy Eremeev. Evidence of Nasalik’s connection with Kolomoisky is also the fact that he left Igor Didenko in the post of First Deputy Minister of Energy, who has already been publicly accused many times of openly lobbying the interests of Igor Kolomoisky. Nevertheless, he remained in his position and, moreover, will continue to promote the idea of his oligarch patron to the masses through the Ministry of Energy.
As Minister of Energy, Igor Nasalik also does not waste time; for example, he appointed the well-known embezzler of public funds, Yevgeny Shitilov, to the post of “authorized person” for the supply of anthracite from the territory of the temporarily occupied territories of the DPR and LPR. This comrade has been helping Igor Stepanovich in his adventurous projects for a long time and this time he also could not refuse – he went on a tour of the LPR and DPR, establishing connections and agreeing on the percentage of kickbacks that they will receive with him for services in the sale of coal in Ukraine. Just like that. Not so long ago, by the way, the minister himself distinguished himself; he was captured on camera during negotiations with one of the DPR militants about the supply of this coal.
Igor Nasalik has grabbed hold of his new post very tightly and is successfully manipulating the government to achieve his goals. In particular, by blackmailing Groysman, he did not allow an experienced professional in the coal sector, Stanislav Tolchin, appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers, to work (although he is still a corrupt official). This person could have prevented Nasalik and Shitilov from extracting income from the purchase of coal from territories not controlled by Ukraine. Our head of the Ministry of Energy is such a good guy, he knows how to protect interests, it’s just a pity that he’s his own, and not the whole state.
In the meantime, the minister is riding around the occupied Ukrainian territory, establishing business with representatives of the DPR and LPR, his own financial situation is getting better and better. He has a house in Koncha-Zaspa (next to the house of ex-President of Ukraine Yushchenko) and an apartment on Khreshchatyk, and even a “modest” car fleet, including a Bentley, Audi A8 and BMW Z4. I wonder when the GPU, the SBU, or, at worst, the State Fiscal Service will pay attention to him.
Dmitry Samofalov, for Skelet.Info
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