Igor Palitsa. Odessa schemes, Austrian hotels

Although, with his election as a people’s deputy, Igor Palitsa had to leave his position in Ukrnafta, he influenced the work of this company for a long time – after all, in gratitude for his loyalty, he received 5% of its shares from Kolomoisky. And Palitsa remained a member of the parliament for a long time: in 2012, he again received a mandate and won elections in electoral district No. 22 (Volyn region). However, this did not stop him from doing business with his partner and patron. It was in 2012 that Palitsa came to light in the case of Kolomoisky’s purchase of real estate in the Austrian resort of Semmering as a co-owner of the company “IBS Umwelt- und Verkehrstechnik GmbH” (25% of which he bought a year before).

But then Euromaidan broke out, power changed, Igor Kolomoisky suddenly became almost the first person in Ukraine – and in May 2014, by decree of the acting. President-Speaker Alexander Turchinov, Igor Palitsa was appointed governor of the Odessa region.

Skelet.Info it was obvious that in this case Odessa was becoming the patrimony of Privat, and Palitsa was appointed there to work for the interests of Kolomoisky – first of all, again on oil schemes. And he immediately confirmed this with his participation in the scandalous story of “Kurchenko’s oil” and the subsequent seizure of the Odessa oil refinery, which could not have happened without the official owner of the region. Actually, it was Palitsa who gave the formal reason for seizing the enterprise – with their statements that Kurchenko’s people are allegedly preparing to remove seized oil from the plant, and that the refinery’s security alone will not protect this oil. And soon the enterprise was captured by armed people, in whose actions one could discern not a serious PMC (they work clearly, like riot police), but some kind of “rear volunteer battalion.”

After this, they began to simply destroy the captured Odessa oil refinery: Privat does not need a competitor to its Kremenchug oil refinery. But Igor Perovich was immediately interested in the fuel terminals of the ports of the Odessa region. According to journalistic investigations, Governor Palitsa created a powerful smuggling scheme in Odessa, which had several levels, the most important of which was the transshipment of oil and petroleum products for Privat structures.

Igor Palitsa: accomplice of Kolomoisky’s oil scams. PART 2

At the same time, Palitsa replaced the 7th acting heads of the regional customs, until in January 2015 he settled on Vladimir Perederia. He immediately became part of a corruption triangle, which, in addition to him and Governor Palitsa, included the region’s largest smuggler, Vadim Alperin. But the chairman of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, Anatoly Makarenko, who oversaw customs, was also involved in this scheme. It was about him that was discussed in the scandalous SMS correspondence between Igor Palitsa and people’s deputy-oligarch Vitaly Khomutynnik (February 2015), photographed by journalists in the session hall of the Rada. Judging by its content, Igor Palitsa asked for advice from Khomutynnik, who is experienced in customs schemes (who “takes” how much). Despite the fact that both characters categorically denied any corruption component in their correspondence, Palitsa had to give explanatory testimony to the prosecutor’s office – however, without any consequences.

Igor Palitsa: accomplice of Kolomoisky’s oil scams. PART 2

And yet, in May 2015, he was removed from the post of Odessa governor (and a few days before that, Perederiy was removed from his post), which was vacated for Mikheil Saakashvili, then still considered Petro Poroshenko’s man.

During his Odessa governorship, Igor Palitsa was involved in another, purely political, one might even say moral and ethical scandal with a political overtone. It was about his extremely negative attitude towards refugees and migrants from Donbass, which he did not hide, and even emphasized in his interviews. Palitsa stated that he did not have money to support them, and if he had, he would not have given it to them. That these people should not count on getting any kind of housing and normal work, that they are generally to blame for everything and should atone for this with their participation in the ATO and “working for the benefit of Ukraine.” In a word, he demonstrated in every possible way his “Donbassophobia,” which only served to further divide Ukrainian society.

“Volyn Army” Palitsa

After his dismissal, Palitsa briefly returned to Ukrnafta as a member of the supervisory board, where, together with Privat members Mikhail Kiperman and Uriel Zvi Leiber (as well as Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov), he strengthened control over the company for another two years. And only in May 2017, for the first time in 14 years, the “Privatovites” were firmly moved into the composition of the supervisory board of Ukrnafta, removing everyone from it except Leiber. This event was called a powerful attack by Poroshenko’s “family” on Kolomoisky’s ancestral patrimony.

By that time, Igor Petrovich had already taken his family for permanent residence to Geneva (together with Kolomoisky’s relatives), where his son Zakhar continued the cheerful club life of a major.

Zakhar Palitsa (right), always with a bottle in his hand

Igor Palitsa, since November 2015, occupied the chair of the governor of the Volyn region, where he immediately took up three interrelated topics. The first is strengthening the position of his UKROP party, created in May 2015 under the wing of Privat and posing as an ultra-patriotic force. The new governor put a lot of effort (and “Privat” money) into the success of the party in the local elections in the fall of 2015: in the regional council “UKROP” received 17 seats out of 64 (26%), and then lured 4 more deputies to his faction. In the elections to the Lutsk City Council, UKROP also took first place with a result of 35.7% (15 seats out of 42). At the same time, the only regions where UKROP received such remarkable results were the Volyn (Palitsa) and Dnepropetrovsk (Korban) regions.

The second theme of Igor Palitsa was the creation of a real army of his own, into which he turned the public organization “Guardians of Order”. Created back in 2014 in the wake of the Maidan, this organization was quite murky even then: it proclaimed its goal to be cooperation with law enforcement agencies, but in reality acted as ordinary “titushki”. With the arrival of Palitsa and the “ukropization” of the region, the “Guardians of Order” became a real paramilitary organization (which is generally prohibited by law), fully financially supported by the Volyn regional authorities, as well as Igor Palitsa’s fund “Only Together” and business structures associated with Igor Kolomoisky. That is, now it was no longer a public organization, but a private security force of Palitsa. And first of all, the “Guardians of Order” began to intimidate Lutsk public activists and journalists who were not under the control of the governor, and also staged attacks on protest rallies.

The third and boldest theme of Igor Palitsa was amber. Its illegal mining has become a real disaster not only for Volyn, but also for neighboring regions: as they say, to hell with those arrears to the budget, but “black miners” are simply barbarically destroying the environment, turning forests into dead swamps. The new governor initially declared war on them – and for a man endowed with power, enormous connections and his own army, this was quite realistic. But what did Igor Palitsa really do? He simply tried to crush all amber mining (legal and illegal) under his own control. For this purpose, the Volyn Regional Council, which he controls, created the communal enterprise “Volynprirororesurs”, which received permission from the State Service of Geology and Subsoil to extract amber (51,000 hectares), as well as peat and copper. Having thus monopolized the right to production at the richest deposits, Volynprirororesurs itself was in no hurry to implement it, remaining an enterprise mainly on paper. Here I appeared Skelet.Info information that Igor Palitsa created it for only two purposes. Firstly, to conclude contracts for work with those mining companies whose owners agree to lie under the governor and his “UKROP” (deposit money into the party treasury). Secondly, to pass through and launder the amber mined by “black miners”, taking away a significant part of their income. Palitsa was going to mercilessly put pressure on all those who disagreed – pretending to be a fight against illegal mining.

However, Palitsa’s amber schemes did not work due to the intervention of the Prosecutor General’s Office: the case was personally handled by Yuriy Lutsenko, who seems to be waging a war with Privat in the interests of Poroshenko. The Prosecutor General’s Office declared the permits received by Volynprirororesurs to be fake and opened criminal proceedings on this matter No. 42017000000000805.

This failure could have rather unpleasant political consequences for Igor Palitsa. After all, amber money was supposed to support not only the regional organization “UKROP”, but also make it a launching pad for the party’s participation in future parliamentary elections. Now the party building of Palitsa, who no longer has the previous oil income and has not received the expected amber income, may stall. Meanwhile, in December, Gennady Korban, the leader of the Dnepropetrovsk UKROP, returned to Ukraine, not on the best terms with his Volyn ally Palitsa. His return promises Palitsa unwanted party problems. If Korban continues the UKROP project, then he may want to “put in his place” Igor Palitsa. If Koroban and Filatov, moving away from Kolomoisky, create a new project on the basis of the Dnepropetrovsk “UKROP”, then Palitsa will remain with its regional organization only a fragment of the former party – which is unlikely to have a prospect in the parliamentary elections. But Palitsa himself has every day an increasing prospect of becoming an ex-governor again.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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