CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Vasyl Petyovka: “Tsimbora” faction in the Verkhovna Rada. PART 1
Vasily Petevka
Power, forest and dead nurses
In 1989, a young teacher at Uzhgorod University, Sergei Ivanovich Ustich, who rose to power on the wave of “perestroika,” became deputy chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional Executive Committee. In the summer of 1994, he was elected chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional Council, and in July 1995 he became the head of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration, serving in this post until May 1999. In the first half of the 90s, Ustich’s activities were aimed at lobbying for the administrative and political autonomy of the region (he was a supporter of the creation of an autonomous region), but then he cooled down somewhat in relation to “Rusyn separatism” and, in exchange for the governor’s post from the hands of Kuchma, became politically loyal to Kyiv. However, Ustich began to defend projects for creating a “special economic zone” in Transcarpathia. Was this beneficial to the local mafia for their patron settled in Hungary? Without a doubt! But the most interesting thing is that Sergei Ustich’s father was the director of a school in the village of Zagatie, where Viktor Baloga and Ivan Dankanich studied.
Sergey Ustich, 90s
Governor Uschit had a political opponent in the person of Uzhgorod mayor Sergei Ratushnyak, who was closely associated with Uzhgorod organized crime groups. This was another reason that Ustich sought support from their Mukachevo competitors – the Geshi Tokar group. Apparently, the murder of Mikhail Bryanik in 1996 was one of the points of this support. A favor for a favor, and Governor Ustich provided unlimited support to the Gesha businessmen Baloga and Petevka, putting at their disposal all the available resources of the region. First of all, we were talking about the forest, the mass cutting of which was carried out by Barva and other companies Blogi and Petevka.
Both sides sought support in Kyiv. Sergei Ratushnyak found contacts with Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko, and after his resignation he bet on the Hromada party. In contrast, Ustich became close to the leaders of the SDPU (c) Viktor Medvedchuk and Grigory Surkis. So he helped the leaders of the Social Democratic Democrats gain a foothold in Transcarpathia, where they still hold their positions. Together with Ustich in 1997-98. they were supported by Tokar’s organized crime group, and in particular by Baloga and Petyovka, who helped Medvedchuk win the elections in the majoritarian constituency of the Irshavsky district.
Ustić turned out to be a less powerful political player than Victor Baloga. He, through his intrigues, achieved his resignation and took the governor’s chair in May 1999. Again, behind Baloga, the shadow of the then all-powerful Vasily Durdinets invisibly hung: in 1997-98, the old general was the head of the National Bureau of Investigation and actually “protected” organized criminal groups friendly to himself (and eliminated unwanted “authorities”), and from March 1999 he headed the Ministry of Emergency Situations – and convinced Kuchma that Viktor Baloga, as governor of Transcarpathia, would do an excellent job of dealing with the flood problem.
Therefore, May 25, 1999 can be considered the birthday of the Victor Baloga clan, which concentrated administrative, economic and shadow power in the region in its hands, thereby surpassing Gesha Tokar. Well, following his cousin “modestly” was Vasily Petevka: in 1998, he became the head of the board of Barva LLC and managed the entire family business. His deputy then was the well-known Igor Kril – a faithful accomplice and ally of Baloga and Petyovka, who in 1999 became deputy governor, in 2006 and 2007 he was made a people’s deputy (buying him a place on the NUNS list), and in 2008 Krill and Petyovka headed the Balog family party “United Center”.
In those years, only the official turnover of Barva and its numerous subsidiaries amounted to 5-6 million dollars a year – but this was a drop in the ocean from the volume of smuggling that passed across the border in both directions. In particular, according to Skelet.Infovaluable types of wood were registered as cheap firewood, and the smuggling of cigarettes, alcohol, fuel, medicines, and cars was completely ignored.
Igor Kril
In addition, in 1999-2000 “Barva” fed itself very well through barter settlement schemes. Through it there was a massive distribution of salaries and social payments “in kind”, that is, food, goods, vouchers to sanatoriums, medicines, etc. All this was given at greatly inflated prices. In return, Barva received resources from the state at a reduced cost, which it then profitably speculated on: for example, on the resale of 320 tons of sugar received from the State Reserve by order of Governor Baloga No. 06-5/854, the Barva company received 750 thousand hryvnia in profit!
All this was drawn up by the head of the enterprise, Vasily Petevka. He was also behind numerous “minor” frauds, such as: the theft of 82.5 thousand hryvnia when Barva purchased seedlings from the Zelenobud utility company, the illegal acquisition of a land plot for the construction of a store (a branch of Barva of the Goliath MCP) , misappropriation of 124 thousand budget hryvnia allocated by the City Council for the repair of a garment factory (which already belonged to Barva) and many others. For example, Barva structures did not pay for the rent of premises that were on the city’s balance sheet (damage exceeding 18 thousand hryvnia); in the Kyiv region, a batch of Russian vodka (100 thousand bottles) belonging to the Barva-M company was detained without the necessary documents. These are only those episodes for which criminal proceedings were initiated.
Pavel Baloha
It was then that 21-year-old prosecutor Pavel Baloga got burned while smuggling stolen cars. He came under surveillance by the authorities back in 1998, when he brought a Mercedes 320 with fake documents to Ukraine. In just two years, Pavel Baloga transported 17 foreign cars across the border worth about a million dollars – this is how a young employee of the prosecutor’s office worked part-time. One of these Mercedes was purchased with budget money for the head of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration, Viktor Baloga. The family began to develop the local SBU, but the “tsimbora” already had their own people in its leadership: the deputy head of the investigative department of the regional SBU Nikolai Gerasimenko took Pavel Baloga’s case for himself and… hid it in his garage, where it was found already in 2006, during searches , carried out in the case against the “werewolf in uniform.” But then it was too late: Viktor Baloga became the head of the Presidential Secretariat. He not only hid his brother’s case again, but also pulled Gerasimenko himself out of trouble – and even made him the head of the SBU Investigation Department! Together with Tiberiy Durdynets, Gerasimenko was the two main hands of the Balogov “tsimbora” in the Security Service of Ukraine, which contributed to such a scale of smuggling in Transcarpathia. Then Gerasimenko was kicked out in 201, but he returned in 2014 and got a job as an adviser to Valentin Nalyvaichenko, but was expelled again when the SBU was headed by Gritsak. A today Gerasimenko has been appointed advisor to the new head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov. It seems that “Tsymbora” has already found its way into the new government!
Nikolay Gerasimenko
At the turn of the century, the political orientation of the Balogh clan changed. One of the reasons, apparently, was great ambitions: the Social Democrats wanted to crush the region under themselves, and Baloga did not want to give up his crown to the local king. And then an opportunity arose: the then head of the National Bank, Viktor Yushchenko, who diligently played the role of a great Ukrainian patriot, often visited the Sinyak sanatorium in Transcarpathia, located in the protected area of the Mukachevo region. Baloga, who got wind that Viktor Andreevich had a great future ahead of him, decided to “make friends” with him, and arranged for Yushchenko a royal service with all the services, and, according to Skelet.Infoincluding intimate ones. We are talking about a certain student at the Kyiv Medical Institute, hired for “special service” by Yushchenko as a nurse. As the media wrote, after several months of such “service,” the student became pregnant and was transferred to the care of Baloga. More precisely, only the unborn child of the “Ukrainian messiah” was handed over, since in the traditions of the Balogh clan such mistresses were not considered full-fledged people.
And indeed: after the birth, which was personally attended by the head physician of the Mukachevo regional hospital, Vasily Vasyuta, the child’s mother went missing (later it turned out that she had suddenly died). The girl, named Sofia, was first registered as an orphan in an orphanage, and when Yushchenko became prime minister, Viktor Baloga immediately adopted her and invited Yushchenko to her christening – and so they became godfathers. At the same time, Baloga allegedly saved the video footage of the “therapeutic sessions” of Yushchenko and the child’s mother, as incriminating evidence “just in case” – while the cameraman who made this video most likely died.
And about the traditions of the Balogh clan: a similar story happened in the 90s with Vasily Petevka. He had a mistress, a very pretty blonde, with whom he did not hesitate to appear in public – so the residents of Mukachevo began to recognize her as “the girlfriend of the owner of Barva.” And suddenly in 1998 she disappeared, disappeared, and Petyovka did not put anyone on the wanted list and generally pretended that she had never existed. The body of the unfortunate woman was found only three months later, in the basement, eaten beyond recognition by rats – but Petyovka was not upset by this news, it was as if he did not know this girl. What happened next was a real thriller: an investigator from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who decided to investigate the case against the “recommendation from above” to close the case, soon died (allegedly himself), and the criminal case was “lost.” Then the poor girl’s mother, who was trying to seek justice, also disappeared.
Scary? However, the list of people who interfered with Viktor Baloga and Vasily Petevka, who suddenly disappeared, died or were killed, is quite long. It contains not only criminal “authorities” and mistresses, but also local government officials, for example, the former mayor of Mukachevo Vasily Iltyo (found hanged in the forest), or the head of the organizational department of the regional council Pyotr Fedisyak (found dead in his apartment with signs of severe beatings).
How to steal a military town
Having bet on Yushchenko, Baloga initially almost lost, since his godfather was dismissed in 2001. The governor of Transcarpathia was next, but Baloga cheated: he quickly wrote a letter of resignation of his own free will, supposedly as a sign of protest. So Viktor Baloga became a “fighter against the regime” and also came closer to Yushchenko in political terms.
However, power in Transcarpathia had to be maintained, since there were enough clans that wanted to dominate the region (as there are today). And the Baloga-Petevka family decided to retain at least Mukachevo. In the elections of the mayor, the clan nominated Vasily Petyovka as a candidate, who by that time had become a deputy of the regional council and headed the commission on issues of territorial and land structure. The deforestation of land and forests was in full swing under him! In particular, on July 1, 2002, LLC “Partner” (registered to Petevka’s wife and Viktor Baloga’s mother) illegally acquired the building of the Mukachevo city printing house at a cheap price, causing damage to the city in the amount of 366 thousand hryvnia. Another of their companies, MKF “Goliath”, practically for nothing, purchased a plot of land from the Mukachevo Agricultural College, on which they later built a building materials store. Another plot of land was allocated to another company of the Balogi-Petevki clan, Transcarpathian Food Group LLC. 590 thousand hryvnia, allocated in 2001 under the program to combat the consequences of floods, were actually stolen. The building of the Mukachesvsky Central Department Store was sold not to its workforce (which had a priority right), but to a commercial company, at a price reduced by 52 thousand hryvnia…
The “democratic opposition” turned a blind eye to all these violations and criminal cases. “Our Ukraine” and “Batkivshchyna” came out in support of Petyovka, leaflets with appeals were distributed throughout the city that Petyovka is the “European choice”, etc. Anyone who objected to this was recorded as a “Kuchmist” and Medvedchuk’s hirelings. This was logical, because Petyovka’s main opponent was the protege of the Social Democrats, Ernest Nuser.
Viktor Yushchenko, Ivan Plyushch and Viktor Baloga at an election rally in Mukachevo
The revenge of the Baloga family was terrible: it very seriously cleared Mukachevo and the regional authorities of those who supported the Social Democrats. But behind the façade of political analysis there were hidden criminal ones, since it was a purge of competing clans and the corrupt officials and security forces who supported them. People from Durdinets began to dominate in the local SBU, Vladimir Geletey rose in the local Organized Crime Control Department, the same thing happened everywhere, from the prosecutor’s office to local election commissions – by the way, this is why since then, candidates from the Balogi clan have been winning elections in the Mukachevo region.
But here’s what’s interesting and even funny: as soon as President Yushchenko appointed Viktor Baloga as governor of Transcarpathia, he immediately accepted Enest Nucer into his team, appointing him head of the Department for External Relations and European Integration of the Regional State Administration (in a mockery, or what?), where he worked until 2012! Moreover, Nusser later joined the Balogh family party “United Center”! This eloquently suggests that the political confrontation in the Mukachevo mayoral elections, played out for the people as a battle between the forces of light and darkness, was just a show for naive fools.
What did Vasily Petyovka, who was “reinstated” as mayor of Mukachevo, do? Habitual corruption and theft, while Petyovka, as the “chief accountant of the family,” continued to unofficially manage Barva and its subsidiaries (registered to the wives of Baloga and Petyovka), carrying out his schemes through them. Sometimes he was grabbed by the hand, but this hand was immediately released, because his cousin Viktor Baloga in 2006-2007. was the second person in Ukraine after Yushchenko – heading the Presidential Secretariat. And even after his resignation, the corrupt activities of Mukachevo mayor Vasily Petevka, like other people of the Baloga crime clan, remained without proper assessment by law enforcement agencies. In fact, their crimes were only recorded – and then they were immediately forgotten. Including about the high-profile fraud with the real estate of the military camp.
In 1979, the 5N86 Dnepr long-range radar detection station began operating near Mukachevo. It became an unpleasant nuisance for the Americans, since it saw targets at a distance of 4000 km (to the middle of the Atlantic). After the collapse of the USSR, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) rented the station, receiving data from it for its defense, and in 2005, immediately after the Orange Revolution, the Ukrainian side staged a kind of economic blockade of the station – in particular, regularly turning off its electricity. This was done not without the participation of Governor Baloga and Mayor Petyovka. But this should not be considered a guerrilla war of patriots who foresaw the events of 2014. No, the Balogi-Petevka clan had its own plans for the station. When in 2007 Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) decided not to renew the lease and refuse the services of this station, they immediately began to debit it. The first stage was the withdrawal of property from the funds of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, lobbied at the very level in Kyiv. The station itself was transferred to the disposal of the National Space Agency of Ukraine, in which Mikhail Grinshpon developed his schemes, and the territory and buildings of the military camps were transferred to the balance of the Mukachevo City Council – at the complete disposal of Vasily Petevka. At the same time, later this program was blamed exclusively on Prime Minister Yanukovych, completely forgetting that the Minister of Defense at that time was Anatoly Gritsenko, who was “famous” for the active sale of military bases and towns. That is, the “orange” even here managed to shift all the blame exclusively to the “Donetsk”.
Gritsenko and Baloga: they are still together today
The scam followed the classic scheme of Gritsenko’s time: non-residential real estate of military units (warehouses, barracks, land) was sold to private companies, and the proceeds were to be used to purchase or reconstruct housing for the military. In this case, the money was to be spent both on the overhaul of seven residential buildings in the military camp, and on the construction of new housing – with the transfer of 44 apartments to the military. The initiator of this barter was officially initiated by the city authorities of Mukachevo in the person of Vasily Petevka, immediately receiving the go-ahead in Kyiv. And then the fun began. Having prepared the scheme, Vasily Petyovka decided to resign from the post of mayor, moving to the Verkhovna Rada (Viktor Baloga bought both passing places on the Our Ukraine list). So, although the scheme was carried out under his control, it was as if he had nothing to do with it.
A formal auction was then held. Two companies took part in it: Partner LLC, whose founders were Oksana Baloga and Marina Petyovka, and the front company Okna Stroy-Zakarpattya LLC, whose director Svetlana Shubets worked as an accountant at Korona-Lux LLC (a subsidiary of Barvy ). At this auction, several properties of the former military camp (see documents) were sold to Partner LLC for 22 million hryvnia. At the same time, the market value of the objects was estimated at 70 million! That is, Petyovka and his relatives “swindled” their own city for almost 50 million hryvnia (10 million dollars at the then exchange rate).
Such “apartments” for the Ukrainian military were provided by Petevka’s company
In 2009, Viktor Baloga, who lost his position as head of the Secretariat and the status of a “gray eminence,” was not defeated, but played out a backup plan that provided his family clan with another 10 years of almost carefree existence: although they lost Kyiv, they defended their positions in Transcarpathia . The creation of his own party “United Center” was only one of the steps taken: Baloga, thus, took part of “Our Ukraine” with him. It is curious that in addition to relatives and clan members (Petevka, Krill), such a very non-public person as Viktor Topolov was accepted into the party. In the 90s, Topolov was one of the founders of the Kyiv-Donbass group – just like Mikhail Grinshpon, with whom Petyovka dreamed of dismantling the Dnepr radar for scrap, just like the Kiev organized crime group of Alik Magadan, which was one of the branches empire of Mogilevich. Mogilevich again!
The shadow of “Seva” also loomed behind Alexander Rovt, Baloga’s fellow countryman, who emigrated to the USA in the mid-80s and considers Mogilevich one of his managers. It was Rovt who helped Balogh a lot to save his business. And in 2009 Biktor Baloga defended from Tymoshenko Dmitry Firtash, who was also called Mogilevich’s top manager (by the way, it was Rovt who ceded his chemical plants in Ukraine to Firtash, then this was called a change of formal owner).
All this was linked into a general scheme, which was confirmed by information from sources Skelet.Info: It was Mogilevich who decided that the Baloga clan should continue to rule its Transcarpathian fiefdom. Therefore, he retained his influence in the region in 2009, although Tymoshenko was determined to cleanse him. He successfully survived the Yanukovych regime, losing only the cigarette smuggling channel, which he restored again in 2014 (and in 2015 he had a fight over it with his partner Lanyo). Of course, no one has heard of Mogilevich for many years, but it is possible that the web of criminal and corruption connections he created in Ukraine will help the Baloga-Petevka clan remain the “barons of Transcarpathia.” But she’s not the only one.
At the very beginning, we noted that although Viktor Baloga and Vasily Petevka formally supported the ideas of a unitary mononational Ukraine, they informally supported Rusyn separatism, as well as the Transcarpathian dioceses of the UOC-MP (Petevka even has awards from the Moscow Patriarchate). By the way, this is one of the reasons why the UOC-MP has such a powerful position in Transcarpathia – thanks to the brothers Balogh and Petyovka! So, back in 2008, when Victor Baloga’s chair suddenly began to shake, in Transcarpathia they suddenly started talking about recognizing the Rusyn nationality – they started talking at the level of city and regional councils! This was a clear signal to Kyiv, actually blackmail. It ended with Viktor Baloga allegedly “stopping separatism” himself, but in fact he did this only after agreements that his family clan would not be disturbed.
Therefore, it is quite possible that he can use this trump card in the future. The conditions of the Balogi-Petyovka clan remain the same: allow them to continue to be regularly re-elected to the Verkhovna Rada with the whole family (perhaps the brothers will soon drag their sons there), do not touch their people in the authorities of the Transcarpathian region, and do not destroy their family business, built on smuggling. Will Vladimir Zelensky agree with these conditions?
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
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