People’s Deputy Andrei Denisenko: unfinished business of the gang of “patriots” PART 1
As you know, revolutions raise different people from the very bottom to the heights of power. Including inveterate scoundrels who for many years found refuge in radical forms of patriotism, giving it a negative connotation with their aggressive and absurd ideas. But they do even more harm when they gain power, and with it a license for lawlessness. An example of this is Andrei Denisenko, one of the leaders of Dnepropetrovsk national radicals, a well-known brawler and provocateur in the city. This is associated with the “language patrols” that appeared in the Dnieper, regular fights on May 9 and much more tragic incidents, including murders.
Forgotten past
Denisenko Andrey Sergeevich was born on January 1, 1973 in Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnepr). Perhaps his birth on the same day as the father of radical Ukrainian nationalism, Stepan Bandera, somehow influenced the worldview of Denisenko, who embraced this ideology from a young age. But in general, his biography until the mid-2000s was a complete “terra incognita”. And the reasons why this “professional activist” hid most of his life from the public are unknown. Andrei Denisenko remains silent about who his parents were. He did not tell why after school he entered the history department of Dnepropetrovsk University – after all, this was not the best choice of profession for life at that time, but typical for a young national patriot. Denisenko chose to remain silent that he never paid his military debt to Ukraine, and did not tell how he managed to “get rid of” the military commissar. And most importantly, he stubbornly hides what he did in the period from 1995 (when he graduated from the university) until 2005, when he first appeared at the all-Ukrainian level as the chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk city branch of Our Ukraine.
It was reported that Andrei Denisenko worked for a long time in the leadership of the regional organization KUN (Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists), and was “fed” by grants and other financial assistance that this party, unpopular even in the west of Ukraine (and even more so in Dnepropetrovsk), received from right-wing organizations of the Ukrainian diaspora in the New World (USA and Canada). Perhaps Denisenko’s leadership and grants were given to him by the same people who helped him graduate from the Faculty of History and get out of the army.
At the same time, there are doubts that such an active young man lived only on modest grants, and his reluctance to show off his past (especially in the 90s) and the presence of many connections with odious and even criminal figures in Dnepropetrovsk raise many questions and rumors. In particular, some of these rumors claim that in the late 90s Andrei Denisenko was involved in some kind of shadow business. Other rumors that SKELET-info trusts more, they claim that as an “irreconcilable and eternal oppositionist,” Denisenko was hired (sold) to certain influential forces who used him in their interests as a mouthpiece for merciless criticism or an organizer of protests. They also said that Denisenko’s close acquaintance with such people as Dnepropetrovsk “authority” Alexander Nalekreshvili and his former “foreman” Mikhail Koshlyak did not occur during the second Maidan, but much earlier, in the “dashing” 90s, when they had not yet were “respected businessmen.”
Mikhail Koshlyak
This is the same Koshlyak, who in 2015 was detained together with Gennady Korban in a high-profile case about a gang of “patriots”, accused of smuggling in the ATO zone, kidnapping, theft of 40 million hryvnia of volunteer assistance and murder of an SBU officer. A case that remains unfinished, and its main defendants remain unpunished.
From Maidan to Maidan
Let’s go back a few years ago, when the political forces that won the first Maidan began an active struggle for the redistribution of power. By that time, Andrei Denisenko had managed to abandon the KUN cell and moved to Narodny Rukh – whose organization in Dnepropetrovsk was just as marginal. In the period from 2000-2002. Denisenko’s political activity boiled down mainly to the war with his former comrades who had defected from the People’s Movement to the party of Yuri Kostenko. He continued to strengthen his image as a brawler.
Then Denisenko defected to the Reforms and Order (PRP) party, whose Dnepropetrovsk regional organization was created back in 1997 and financed for many years by Alexander Zhir – a native of Marganets, a former colonel of the SBU, people’s deputy of the 2nd and 3rd convocations, a businessman and generally very “cool” “a person who is now employed at the State Enterprise Design Bureau Artillery Armament.” Fat brought Denisenko closer to him and even made him the chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk city branch of the PRP, and during the first Maidan – the chairman of the city branch of Our Ukraine (then the PRP was part of the NU bloc). Since Zhir at that time mainly moved in Kyiv, he needed an active and reliable political assistant and “sic chairman” in Dnepropetrovsk. Denisenko was very active, but turned out to be not at all reliable. Whether he thought of it himself, or was “prompted” by someone, at the end of 2005 Denisenko decided to take over the city organization of the PRP either for himself or for a new, unnamed sponsor (it was rumored that these could be people from Kolomoisky’s entourage). In general, Denisenko decided to bite the hand that fed him and organize an actual raider takeover of the Dnepropetrovsk branch of the PRP – we repeat, created from scratch by Zhir. And by no means marginal, like Rukh or KUN, since Zhir gathered a lot of businessmen and enterprise managers into it.
Alexander Zhir
Denisenko began to dig under Zhir, turning members of the PRP against him. He launched information that Zhir sold Boris Berezovsky the scandalous films of Melnichenko, to which Zhir had access as the chairman of the parliamentary commission investigating the murder of Georgy Gongadze. Denisenko then directly accused Zhir of receiving money from Nikolai Shvets, the former head of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Council since 2005, and the main political enemy of the PRP in the region. After which Denisenko organized a regional conference of the PRP on December 24, 2005, at which 47 out of 63 votes expressed no confidence in Giroud. Vladimir Chernyavsky was elected as the new chairman, around whom, together with Denisenko, city activists Pavel Khobot and Stanislav Belodidenko, who enjoyed the support of Alena Gagaruts, editor of the city newspaper “Litsa”, known for its scandalous publications (often custom-made), “crowded together”. However, Zhir’s supporters also held their own conference – at which they confirmed his chairmanship, and at the same time expelled Denisenko and other conspirators from the PRP.
As a result, two regional PRP organizations appeared in Dnepropetrovsk, fighting with each other, which is why the party miserably blew the March 2006 elections in the region, receiving only 0.7% of the votes. In November 2006, the PRP-Denisenko decided to end this confrontation, announced its self-dissolution and transformation into the public organization “Civil Asset of Dnepr” (GRAD). It’s worth paying attention to this name. Firstly, the name was ripped off from the “Civil Asset of Kyiv” that had existed for a long time (nicknamed by the people of Kiev “Robbery Asset”). And secondly, even then Denisenko was campaigning for the “decommunization” of Dnepropetrovsk, while simultaneously opposing the return of the name Yekaterinoslav to the city (as a Russian-imperial one). But since the name “Sicheslav” proposed by the national patriots was ridiculed by the townspeople, being literally and vulgarly translated into Russian, the “Svidomo Ukrainians” scratched their heads and proposed shortening Dnepropetrovsk to the neutral “Dnepr”. Also, even then Andrei Denisenko, with a manic hatred of everything Soviet, claimed that soon he and his “activists” All Soviet monuments in the city will definitely be demolished.
The actual activities of GRAD boiled down to scandals and protests, mainly ordered. According to sources SKELET-info in Dnepropetrovsk, Gradovites often even organized their pickets against development in the interests of the developers’ competitors. The elections of the mayor in 2010 summed up Denisenko’s activities: Denisenko took sixth place, receiving 5,477 votes from voters in a city with a population of one million. It is interesting that in those elections Denisenko was bypassed by such candidates as Andrei Pavelko, who headed the regional “Front of Change”, and the author of the rival “Civil Force” Zagid Krasnov, who then worked in tandem with Oleg Tsarev.
Disillusioned with GRAD, Andrei Denisenko at the beginning of 2011 joined the VO “Svoboda”, which was then gaining popularity in the western regions and Kyiv. The former KUN activist fully shared the ideas of Oleg Tyagnibok and his associates, although it was problematic to gather an electorate for them in Dnepropetrovsk: in the 2012 elections, Svoboda received about 4% in the region. On the one hand, this is less of a barrier to entry, but on the other hand, it is sensationally high for radical nationalists in a city where such ideas were previously generally perceived as alien. For Denisenko, this became a “clear signal”: he came to the conclusion that it was possible to develop a base of “radical patriotism” in Dnepropetrovsk. And he found support in this from Kolomoisky’s team, which crossed the ideology of national radicals with the fists of “athletes” and “gopniks”, creating their own army from them.
On the payroll of Privat
On April 27, 2012, Dnepropetrovsk was rocked by a series of homemade bomb explosions that injured 25 people. There were no casualties, but the public outcry was enormous: people were in shock, the authorities were in panic, and the opposition angrily claimed that all this was specially set up by the “Donetsk people” – they say, to start repressions in the country. It is interesting that Andrei Denisenko first made a statement in which he directly statedthat two of the detained suspects (Viktor Sukachev and Dmitry Reva) worked at the regional headquarters of the Party of Regions. But a little time passed, and Denisenko became the most active public defender of Dmitry Reva – since he was hired for this by Dmitry’s sister, Oksana Tomchuk, in 2002-2010. who worked at the State Property Fund of Dnepropetrovsk, and then opened her own law office, and had very close working contacts with the Korban-Filatov duo.
Oksana Tomchuk
Denisenko and Tomchuk then launched a very vigorous activity – one can say that from the fall of 2012 to the fall of 2013, the case of the “Dnepropetrovsk terrorists” was Denisenko’s main occupation. Moreover, it was supplemented by an incident with an alleged attempt to set fire to the apartment of Denisenko’s parents: someone smashed a bottle of gasoline on their entrance doors (tin), as a result of which the doors became heavily smoked. Denisenko has long argued in the media that this is the work of a “criminal regime.”
With this story in the biography of Andrei Denisenko, the stage of direct cooperation with the Privatists began. Although numerous sources SKELET-info they claim that Denisenko was well acquainted with them before, almost since the 90s, and fulfilled some of their “requests”; it was in 2013 that he joined their team, sat in the same boat with them. And they swam very far!
But there was another character in this story – Ivan Stupak, a professional “KGB officer” (in 1985 he graduated from the USSR KGB Higher School), who worked in the SBU of Dnepropetrovsk from 1991 to 2006 and had a good dossier on many people. Sources reported that back in the 90s, Stupak recruited Denisenko as a petty “informer” who informed the SBU about the life and activities of Dnepropetrovsk national patriots. In 2010-2012 Ivan Stupak was the deputy head of the Regional State Administration, and then was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Party of Regions.
Ivan Stupak
When the Euromaidan began, in which the VO “Svoboda” and the “activist” and “self-defense” groups it formed played a very important role (read more about this in our material about Igor Krivetsky), the finest hour came for the professional brawler and ringleader Andrei Denisenko. He became one of the leaders of the Dnepropetrovsk Euromaidan, and every day he inspired protesters to “overthrow the regime.” And then… he played the role of “priest Gapon.” This happened on January 26, 2014, when a crowd of right-wing radicals, football fans and simply mischievous youth, at the call of Denismenko, moved from protests to action and tried to seize the Regional State Administration building. Why was this necessary? Until now, no one has asked this question. And it ended with the fact that the “Berkut” and “titushki” who defended the building counterattacked and dispersed the revolutionaries, during which completely innocent civilians who fell under the hot hand also suffered.
But here’s what’s interesting: later, many media outlets published information that Denisenko provoked the storming of the Regional State Administration by prior agreement with Stupak, who was then in control of the situation. At the same time, Denisenko allegedly knew that an “ambush regiment” was sitting at the ready in the Regional State Administration building, and deliberately led the Maidan participants into a trap so that they would be attacked and scattered, thereby ending the protests in Dnepropetrovsk. By the way, Denisenko himself, as journalists reported, after this incident hid in Stupak’s dacha for a whole month!
And what’s even more interesting is that among the “titushki” guarding the Regional State Administration were employees of the Leon private security company, controlled by Mikhail Koshlyak, who was also working with Stupak at the time. The same Koshlyak, who for many years was called one of the leaders of the Privat security bloc. How does this happen?! Yes, it’s very simple: at the beginning of 2014, in Dnepropetrovsk (and, I think, not only there) a monstrously deceitful performance was staged, the purpose of which was to eliminate truly democratic forces from Euromadan, and to completely seize the initiative by swindlers who simultaneously bet on both sides. In this case, they won in any case, regardless of who had the upper hand – the authorities or the Maidan. The apotheosis of this cynicism was the entry of Leon employees into … “Right Sector”. And Andrei Denisenko, who showed up after the Maidan victory, was elected by them as the leader of the regional PS organization.
Andrey Denisenko
However, this happened not only in Dnepropetrovsk: for example, in Kramatorsk, “brothers” from the local organized crime group “17th Precinct”, to which People’s Deputy Maxim Efimov was involved, decided to enroll in the PS. Since “Right Sector” was not a clearly structured organization, anyone could attach its symbols to themselves. And since the spring of 2014, “patriotism” has become an ideal camouflage for adventurers and criminals, because under the masks of “defenders of Ukraine” they could do anything.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: People’s Deputy Andrey Denisenko: unfinished business of the gang of “patriots” PART 2
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