CONT. BEGINNING: Vitaly Kovalchuk: will Poroshenko bankrupt the “network” counterfeiter of Bankova? PART 1
Kovalchuk Vitaly: will Poroshenko bankrupt the “network” counterfeiter of Bankova? PART 2
From Kuchma to Poroshenko: the path of the “jumper”
Having behind him his father-in-law, who enjoyed the favor of President Kuchma himself, Vitaly Kovalchuk managed to avoid many of the troubles that befell him after the scam with the Ukrnaftoprodukt enterprise. Then a criminal case was even opened against Kovalchuk, but it was closed after the direct intervention of Leonid Danilovich.
Having changed two jobs in the first half of 1997 (in a non-state pension fund and in an investment company), Kovalchuk jumped into the chair of vice president of the Naftaenergo Invest Investment Company CJSC, where he was assigned by the same Pyotr Miroshnikov. This structure performed the functions of a company that was supposed to take over shares of other enterprises. And such an enterprise was the Joint Stock Holding Company (AKH) “Ukrnaftoprodukt”, created in January 1998 on the basis of the “Ukrainian Association for the Supply of Oil and Petroleum Products”. AKH owned stakes in regional Nefteprodukts, including a controlling stake in Khersonnefteprodukt, which was the target of the swindlers.
The work on hilling the AKH Ukrnaftoprodukt took Kovalchuk and Miroshnikov almost 4 years. It is interesting that in the late 90s, Alexander Zhukov himself, a companion of the international mafia Leonid Minin and the criminal “authority” Alexander Angert, whose organized crime group included the current Odessa mayor Gennady Trukhanov, and whose support was enjoyed by Ruslan Bodelan, was seen in the Naftaenergo Invest office.
By the way, according to Skelet.InfoZhukov and Minin were engaged in illegal supplies of weapons to the Balkans – and just when Kovalchuk’s father-in-law Kuratchenko was deputy minister of the military-industrial complex and conversion. Coincidence? But besides this, the Minin-Angert organized crime group was involved in oil – in particular, taking over the Odessa Oil Refinery and OJSC Eximnefteproduct. The latter was part of the AKH Ukrnaftoprodukt, but was “squeezed out” from it according to the same scheme: several offshore companies associated with the Marine Bank (controlled by the Angert-Zhukov organized crime group), drove the AKH into debt – and then took it for it debts of the shares “Eximnefteprodukt”. It is quite possible that during this they sought advice or even help from such masters of such scams as Kovalchuk and Miroshnikov. Moreover, they were already engaged in the derivation of AKH Ukrnaftoprodukt for other customers.
In the course of this, several companies of the same name were created: LLC, CJSC, TD, etc. What’s also interesting is this: in the fall of 1999, Kovalchuk quit Naftaenergo Invest, which transformed into Naftoproduct of Ukraine, and spent two whole years “pushing pears” as director of the Regional Initiatives Support Fund. What he was actually doing at this time remains a mystery. But then this is what happened: “Naftoprodukt of Ukraine” acquired 41% of the shares of AKH “Ukrnaftoprodukt”, and in particular control over the Kherson oil refinery, for which, through the trading house “Ukrnaftoprodukt” 60% of the shares of the oil refinery were sold for only 6.3 million dollars to the Ukrainian-Kazakh to the KazakhOil-Ukraine company, the head of which was… Pyotr Miroshnikov! After this, the actual takeover of AKH Ukrnaftoprodukt took place: Miroshnikov became its president, and Kovalchuk became the chairman of the board. And then, as the finale of the scam, management of the Kherson Oil Refinery was transferred to the Russian company Alliance, whose owner was Musa Bazhaev. Although the Bazhaev brothers (Ziya Bazhaev died in a plane crash in 2000 along with Artem Borovik) were considered pro-Moscow Chechens, they were associated with all the changing authorities of Chechnya, including the separatists. Many oil schemes were carried out through the Bazhaev companies, including those related to Kazakh companies. It’s very simple: sometimes Chechen oil was sold as Kazakh oil, and sometimes vice versa.
Musa Bazhaev
The first Maidan and the coming to power of the “orange” literally toppled them from their pedestal, and they were very lucky that the new government did not prosecute them for their old crimes. But Kovalchuk quickly got his bearings here too. In the fall of 2005, he got a job as deputy director of Fargo Law Firm LLC, which served the interests of Victor Pinchuk in his conflict with Privat. A year later, his old friend and former boss Pyotr Miroshnikov, who had taken root near Leonid Chernovetsky, helped Kovalchuk become a deputy of the Goloseevsky District Council. And this was the start of his new career, because in December 2007, Vitaly Kovalchuk, with the help of his connections, became deputy chairman of the Goloseevskaya Regional State Administration. Which, in turn, opened the way for him to big politics.
To some extent, Kovalchuk participated in politics before, when he helped his father-in-law create the NDP and rig elections in favor of the pro-Kuchma bloc “FOR YEDU” (2002). But in April 2010, he jumped so far that he surprised everyone: a man about whom practically no one knew anything in Ukraine became deputy chairman of the UDAR party and chairman of its Kyiv organization. In fact, Vitaly Kovalchuk took over the entire technical leadership of UDAR, leaving Klitschko the role of public leader. But how? Both journalists and numerous sources Skelet.Info They unequivocally claim that the reason for Kovalchuk’s political rise was the sponsors of UDAR, among whom they named Pinchuk, as well as Dmitry Firtash and Sergei Levochkin. There were even suggestions that Kovalchuk was a “Cossack” sent to “UDAR” for its collapse from the inside. If so, then he did a great job!
Kovalchuk Vitaly: will Poroshenko bankrupt the “network” counterfeiter of Bankova? PART 2
Kovalchuk turned the 2012 parliamentary elections into a means of profit for himself. In addition to the fact that he was already the second person in the party, Kovalchuk officially headed the election headquarters of UDAR, as well as the Central Election Commission of the executive committee. And while Vitali Klitschko spoke at pre-election rallies, Kovalchuk formed election headquarters and the party’s electoral list – selling seats both there and there. That’s how Yulia Levochkina’s girlfriend, Kovalchuk’s future wife Natalya Agafonova, got on the “UDAR” list at number 8. How much money for the sold seats and how many donations from the party Kovalchuk put into his pocket without sharing with Klitschko and Palatny, one can only guess. But among other things, Kovalchuk was accused of stealing almost 15 million hryvnia from the UDAR election fund, which was not counted when summing up the results of the election campaign. And as always, ordinary party activists paid for the shortfall, who were not paid for their work in campaign tents and at polling stations.
In 2013, a list of enterprises was published that, over the years of his fruitful work as a lawyer, manager or co-owner, Vitaly Kovalchuk deliberately ruined. In addition to the aforementioned AKH Ukrnaftoprodukt and its regional divisions, the list included Proxim Trading LLC (USREOU 31380139), Transport Systems of Tavrida LLC (USREOU 32125955), Southern Transport Systems LLC (32125248). The Kovalchuk family business enterprises were also mentioned, such as the Victoria clinic, which, according to the cunning schemes of the swindler lawyer, regularly declared unprofitability in order to evade taxes.
Kovalchuk also “distinguished himself” on the second Maidan. While the personal “titushki” of Klitschko and Palatny were protecting expensive boutiques in the center of Kyiv from too radical revolutionaries, Kovalchuk and the UDAR activists decided to build their own barricade at the intersection of Shelkovichnaya and Bogomolets. The only thing it blocked was the way home for the residents of the houses there. And here’s what’s curious: when the Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to take this barricade, Kovalchuk strangely left it 10 minutes before the assault, without telling anyone anything. Maidan participants also recall that when UDAR activists, whom Kovalchuk had instructed to block traffic there, were arrested in Vasilkov, he never deigned to at least try to help them out of the bullpen, and did not even send lawyers to them.
Kovalchuk demonstrated his talent as a swindler and intriguer in the 2014 elections. He was one of those who persuaded Klitschko to refuse to participate in the presidential elections in favor of Poroshenko. After which he got a job as the head of the election headquarters of Pyotr Alekseevich. Kovalchuk attended a secret “historic meeting” in Vienna on April 22, 2014, where UDAR sponsors Dmitry Firtash and Sergei Levochkin, along with Klitschko, discussed the nuances of their alliance with Petro Poroshenko for more than a day.
It was Kovalchuk who was the author of the schemes that helped Poroshenko win in the first round with a result of 54%. The “secrets” of this success have never been announced, but numerous sources Skelet.Info reported the following: since Poroshenko was the only candidate from the “Maidan forces” (except for nationalists and radicals), his victory was predetermined by agreement; all that remained was to “draw” the desired result. And the CEC and Poroshenko’s election headquarters, headed by Kovalchuk, were diligently working on the latter. So he has a lot of experience in “cheating results”, and he used it again in 2019.
It was Kovalchuk who organized the attack against Yulia Tymoshenko in April-May 2014, with the goal of her political elimination as Poroshenko’s competitor. To do this, Kovalchuk made direct public accusations.
Having become close to Poroshenko and his “family” during the presidential elections, Kovalchuk decided to join them. And the first thing he did was give Poroshenko his parliamentary bloc. The fact is that Solidarity’s rating, even in the summer of 2014, barely reached 10%, which was not enough for a pro-presidential party. And then Kovalchuk told the press that UDAR would go to the parliamentary elections as a single bloc with Solidarity, with Klitschko heading the bloc’s electoral list. Klitschko, who was then the mayor of Kyiv and had no intention of leaving this post for parliament, was furious at Kovalchuk’s arbitrariness. But amid cries of “glory to Ukraine!” the process of uniting UDAR and Solidarity had already begun, and Klitschko had to come to terms with the fact that Poroshenko, with the help of Kovalchuk, actually stole the party from him. Relations between Klitschko and Kovalchuk deteriorated after that, but Kovalchuk was not upset – after all, he became one of President Poroshenko’s confidants! And on December 24, 2014, he received the post of First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration.
Life in chocolate
The Our Land party has long been called one of Bankova’s projects, created for the split and political bankruptcy of the former regionals. But at the same time, they do not always clarify that the authorship of this idea belongs to Vitaly Kovalchuk, who is sort of the curator of “Our Land”. By the way, Kovalchuk’s hand was also seen in the current split in the “Opposition Bloc”, when Yuri Boyko and Alexander Vilkul, who opposed each other, went to the polls. This is quite possible, since Kovalchuk is a very creative person, especially when it comes to the need to bankrupt something. Therefore, Poroshenko’s team should be more careful with him, since everything Kovalchuk touches turns into ruins, and now the bony hand of collapse is already hovering over it – just like it once did over “UDAR”.
Nevertheless, Poroshenko trusted Kovalchuk immensely, giving him enormous powers – both official and unofficial. So, during the political crisis between Bankova and the Yatsenyuk government, Kovalchuk was predicted to become a deputy prime minister, who would become a sort of “supervisor” in the Cabinet of Ministers. Yatsenyuk categorically resisted this, and after his resignation, Kovalchuk was still assigned to the Cabinet of Ministers, but as a representative of the president. For what? Does Poroshenko really trust Kovalchuk more than Groysman? And during four years of work as the first deputy head of the Administration, Kovalchuk supervises the work of the heads of regional regional administrations. The media wrote about it like this:
Kovalchuk Vitaly: will Poroshenko bankrupt the “network” counterfeiter of Bankova? PART 2
It turns out that in terms of direct management of the regions of Ukraine (in fact, the entire country), Kovalchuk is a much more important figure than his direct superiors Boris Lozhkin and Igor Rainin. And Kovalchuk used these opportunities for his own selfish interests, creating several corruption schemes of enormous proportions.
At the beginning of 2016, journalist Pavel Sheremet on the pages of Ukrainska Pravda posted material about the raider takeover of the Chamber of Commerce and Industrywhich was conducted by the people’s deputy from “Batkivshchyna” Alexander Dubovoy. There, Sheremet first mentioned the involvement of Vitaly Kovalchuk, who acted in tandem with Dubov, in this case. “Kovalchuk invites individual members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry to meetings at the presidential administration, and then immediately introduces them, as if by chance, to Dubov,” Sheremet wrote. Who knows how deeply Pavel Sheremet would have dug into this topic, but in July of the same year he was killed, and the Russian special services were immediately declared the perpetrators of this murder.
However, then the lawlessness that is happening in relation to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry is openly Politicians have already spoken, in particular Sergei Taruta. It quickly became clear why Kovalchuk was involved in this. It’s very simple – it was all about tenders, the most corrupt topic in today’s Ukraine, and tenders are associated with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In particular, Kovalchuk diligently mastered medical tenders: 80% of them are carried out through regional health departments, and for the “medical mafia” this is a real Klondike! There are billions floating around there, and kickbacks amount to nine-figure sums! Well, now it becomes clear who exactly from the Presidential Administration is in charge of the theft of the health care budget, about which Skelet.Info spoke in detail in the material about the Fistal brothers. But Kovalchuk is also involved in other tenders: infrastructure repair, construction, education, etc. How much sticks to his hands – besides what he seizes himself, such as, for example, elite plots and a house in the center of Kyiv? And who does he “introduce” to?
Vitaly Kovalchuk’s further successes in the field of the “tender business” and other corruption schemes depended on who would become the next president of Ukraine. It would seem that he himself was interested in the re-election of Petro Poroshenko, because the “new broom” could not only sweep him out of the bread position, but also contribute to the initiation of numerous criminal cases against Kovalchuk – as they say, there is something for it! And some of his methods of achieving his goal are quite thought out. For example, a modernized vote buying system.
Previously, votes were bought either according to the black “carousel” scheme, when they bought a blank ballot from a voter, put the required mark on it and gave it to the next voter entering the voting station, buying his blank ballot from him, etc. Or according to a less effective, but white scheme, when candidates bribed the poor by distributing food packages or even money to them (as Sergei Shakhov did), under the guise of providing humanitarian assistance to the suffering. However, quite a few grandmothers, having received a bag of pasta and vegetable oil, then showed the “benefactor” the cookie in their pocket and voted for someone else. To avoid wasting money, Kovalchuk’s headquarters came up with a more reliable method of bribery, when potential Poroshenko voters are first identified through a street survey, inviting them to participate in an innocent, and at first glance, survey. That’s why these tents are the color of gore with slogans like “We go our own way!” They were not engaged in distributing campaign materials, as campaigners for other candidates did, but mainly only in questioning.
However, not all of Kovalchuk’s ideas benefited Poroshenko’s image. The point is that the Ukrainian president adopted radical anti-Russian rhetoric, carried away by the virtual verbal “fight against the aggressor,” precisely on Kovalchuk’s advice. Who thus wanted the votes of “patriotic voters” to consolidate around Poroshenko. According to some sources Skelet.InfoKovalchuk was even the author of the idea of tomos, that is, the transformation of the unrecognized UOC-KP into a metropolis of the canonical Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, Kovalchuk greatly miscalculated, because, shaking his fist from the stands at Putin (*criminal), who was somewhere far away in Moscow, Poroshenko looked not so much patriotic as ridiculous. And there were many times more supporters of peace in Ukraine than those who wanted to fight to the bitter end. And in the end, Poroshenko attracted only the votes of the “war party,” and even then mostly its “couch fighters.” In fact, due to Kovalchuk’s fault, Poroshenko became politically bankrupt. And this directly threatened him and others with bankruptcy: the loss of power, and then a significant part of the business (shadow business, of course), and maybe freedom.
It was already too late to change the image a few weeks before the elections, so Poroshenko’s team had only one thing left: to rely on bribery of voters, as well as on Kovalchuk’s schemes, which he prepared for voting day and the night of the vote count. I prepared it, fully understanding that this is not 2014, and Poroshenko is not the only candidate from the forces that won the Maidan, which means outright falsifications will lead to an explosion of indignation and the threat of destabilization. But here’s an interesting question: wasn’t Kovalchuk preparing Poroshenko’s bankruptcy in advance, on instructions from another candidate – who offered him something more attractive than the post of deputy head of the Administration?
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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