BEGINNING: Pavel Klimets: alcohol schemes of the vodka baron. PART 1
Klimets Pavel: alcohol schemes of the vodka baron. PART 2
Pavel Klimets: New times – old schemes
In 2008-2009, Pavel Klimets was at the top of his alcohol business, his “Olympus” produced 25% of Ukrainian vodka, and even entered the Russian market: in the Voronezh region (Buturlinovsky Distillery) they began to bottle “Olympus” vodka (it was advertised by Valuev himself) , and “Prime” and “5 drops” were produced at the Ulyanovsk plant “Jupiter Production”.
According to Forbes magazine, if we evaluate the efficiency of Olimp’s business from the purely legal side of the business, then it was based on the low-price segment of products: cheap vodka was bought up en masse by Ukrainians because it was 1.3-1.5 times cheaper than products from other brands . At the same time, in 2006, Olimp products occupied 80% of the Ukrainian market for cheap vodka. By the way, in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), “Olympovskaya” vodka was considered as an alternative to the equally cheap “Putinka”. How such cheapness was achieved is now clear: Klimts’ alcohol and excise tax schemes worked successfully, so he could sell vodka and production costs by simply pocketing the excise tax stolen from the state.
An interesting fact: then Pavel Anatolyevich Klimets came into conflict with the head of the Ukrspirt concern Ivan Yakovets. He became the head of Ukrspirt in September 2006, after the dismissal of his “predecessor” Alexander Sukhomlin, and before him, in 1997-2005, Ukrspirt was headed by Ivan Zholner, who greatly contributed to the flourishing of such vodka companies as Olimp, Soyuz- Viktan”, “Nemiroff” and “National Alcohol Traditions”.
The vodka “barons” somehow did not work well with Yakovets: they began to demand the privatization of Ukrspirt, in 2009 they left the all-Ukrainian association of winegrowers and winemakers “SOVAT” and created their own association “Ukrvodka” (electing Zholner as head). Yakovets was a categorical opponent of the privatization of Ukrspirt, and during this conflict he once publicly drew the attention of journalists to a strange thing: while Olimp was reducing official purchases of alcohol, it increased the volume of vodka produced! The question struck at the very groin of Pavel Klimets’ alcohol schemes, so he immediately began to seek Yakovets’ resignation. According to Skelet.Infohe even agreed on this with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but the presidential elections did not allow him to carry out his plans.
But immediately after the “Donetsk” returned to power, in April 2010, Alexey Savchenko, a friend and business partner of Pavel Klimts, became the new head of Ukrspirt. For example, they together owned the Desna football club! But no less curious is that in 1994-2003 Savchenko worked at the Kyiv Ministry of Internal Affairs together with Vitaly Yarema and Valery Geletey. He was called an important figure in the “Ubop mafia”, involved in the murder of the criminal “authority” Pryshchik (and again Pryshchik!), who allegedly created the Avant Bank with money from his “common fund”. Now Alexey Savchenko is one of Petro Poroshenko’s favorites; in 2016 he was appointed governor of the Mykolaiv region.
Alexey Savchenko
However, then Savchenko lasted only two months at the head of Ukrspirt, and he was replaced by Mikhail Labutin, who was almost arrested in 2012, but he stayed there until 2014, and only then became involved in numerous scandalous arrests and mysterious “kidnappings”accused of murder and attempted murder.
And yet, after the crisis of 2008, which at the same time crossed out many of Klimts’ plans in the construction business, things were getting worse for Olimp. The reason was an increase in excise taxes on alcohol, which, according to Forbes, reduced the difference in retail price between cheap “Olympic” vodka and the products of the mid-price segment of other manufacturers, who began to rely on the segment between the low and mid-price. Sales of Olimp were rapidly declining: in 2010 the sales volume was 1.8 billion hryvnia, and in 2014 only about a billion. Even the launch of the new brand “Robin” and “Weeping Willow” did not save the situation. However, according to journalist Pavel Baranetsky, Klimets had one more trump card in reserve: underground alcohol workshops. One worked in Donetsk, the other in Kramatorsk, and the third is located right on the territory of the Prime Distillery in Malinovka.
Klimets Pavel: alcohol schemes of the vodka baron. PART 2
The Olimp vodka crisis also culminated in the financial collapse of the Ukrainian Financial World (UFM) bank. It was declared insolvent in August 2014. But the matter did not stop there, since it turned out that Pavel Klimets deliberately bankrupted his bank. Namely: in July 2014, when the UFM bank was already recognized as a crisis bank, it issued new loans to individuals (in the amount of 212 million hryvnia) and legal entities (in the amount of 124 million hryvnia). In addition, the bank carried out 1,814 transactions in the amount of 324 million hryvnia, which transferred previously issued loans from the accounts of debtors to the accounts of third parties. All this was later taken into account in criminal proceedings No. 32016100100000111, which is still ongoing. In response to these accusations, Klimets did not come up with anything smarter than telling reporters that he had sold his bank before the crisis. However, the court found that as of August 1, 2016, JSCB UMF was 100% owned by the Olympus corporation, and it was registered in the name of the wife, mother and sister of Pavel Klimts.
Perhaps a deputy mandate could have helped him, but after 2006 and 2007, when Klimts managed to buy places on the Party of Regions list, he was no longer able to open the doors to the Verkhovna Rada. But he helped open it to others: when in the fall of 2014 the mysterious Alena Kosheleva (quickly nicknamed the “glamorous fool”), elected on the list of the Radical Party, appeared in parliament, many wondered whose mistress she was? It is clear that not Oleg Lyashko himself – he only loves cows. But it turned out that Alena is the daughter of Vladimir Koshelev, director of the Kharkov distillery, that is, manager Pavel Klimts!
Considering the current economic situation in Ukraine, which currently has no prospects for exiting the crisis, it would be in vain to guess about the plans of Pavel Klimts and his “Olympus” for the future. However, it is worth noting that he has adapted well to the present. He may not be the leader in the alcoholic beverage industry now, but he maintains his position in the top ten. And maybe not only that, because in “these dark times”, murky shadow schemes again became extremely profitable – and Pavel Klimets always has them. It is not surprising that now his business has picked up a bit again: according to media reports, Olimp already produces 13.5% of the vodka consumed in Ukraine, and these are only official figures!
Currently, numerous sources Skelet.Info name the two main vodka schemes of “Olympus”. The first is the production of vodka in Donetsk, at the Lik distillery, which was formally captured by the separatists (plus alcohol workshops in Donetsk and Kramatorsk). The situation with the vodka market in the DPR generally developed in such a way that there was a war there for three years (sometimes real, with shooting) between the controlling distillery of the “Zakharchenko group” on the one hand, and local producers of “palenka” as well as importers of finished vodka from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) on the other. And the so-called “Zakharchenko group” is constantly winning small victories in this war. But, as some journalists claim, the Lik distillery actually remains the property of Pavel Klimets, it’s just that now the DPR authorities share a stake with him. By the way, we should not forget that the Crimean wine and cognac factory “Bakhchisarai”, owned by “Olympus”, although it was re-registered in the Odessa region, its Crimean facilities continue to operate under Russian registration, and the acacias of the plant are cleverly registered to a certain CJSC “Vash” choice”.
From the first scheme comes the second: mass production of vodka from “left-handed” alcohol at the “Prime” distillery in Malinovka. According to media reports, this enterprise caught using counterfeit tax stampsthere is also information that the raw materials he uses were purchased not from Ukrspirt, but from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and even the DPR! Journalists suggest that alcohol or alcohol raw materials may be illegally supplied from Olimp enterprises in Donetsk, that is, in fact, the “separatists” are getting Ukrainians (including Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters) drunk with their “shmurdyak”, which is bottled at Pavel Klimts’ plant in Malinovka. And here it already smells not only of an economic crime, but also of a large-scale, carefully planned sabotage. But two years have passed since these schemes were discovered, and no one in Kyiv has even moved to investigate them at the proper level.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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