Sergei Kunitsyn: Crimean master of land grabbing and political disguise. PART 1
One of the most hardened atavisms of the Kuchma period continues to sit in the Verkhovna Rada, and not just anywhere, but in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction. The man who bears his share of responsibility for the loss of Crimea is now posing as a Ukrainian patriot in Kyiv, a kind of “typical generous Ukrainian” (see below for more on this). Why does Sergei Kunitsyn remain in demand under any government? Is it only because, in his desire to curry favor, he is ready to take on any political overtones and step over anyone, even former comrades in arms? Or also because he always knew with whom to share, to whom to “bring in” and to whom to “cut off” – including a piece of Crimean real estate, which he generously distributed for several years.
However, the former chairman of the Crimean Council of Ministers, adviser to three presidents and appointed chairman of the Sevastopol city administration did not forget about himself. On one of the plots allocated to himself in Simferopol (35a Sadovaya St.), he at one time built a five-story house with a total area of 715 square meters. meters, with 12 bedrooms, 7 toilets, a billiard room and a swimming pool. The “palace,” however, turned out to be typically redneck and tasteless, because its base was built from shell rock (the Crimean analogue of scale block), Kunitsyn clearly regretted spending money on concrete and steel, spending it on the internal “gilding” of the apartments. However, Kunitsyn valued it at $2 million, which is what he asked for the house in 2013, when he first put it up for sale. And he has been selling it for 4 years now, reducing the price to 1.1 million, but, according to Skelet.Infonever finding buyers. Or maybe this sale is some kind of fiction, a scam, just an advertisement in the newspaper? Who knows!
Kunitsyn’s house in Simferopol
But today the Russian media picked up this announcement and used it for counter-propaganda: they say, if Kunitsyn sells his house in Crimea, it means he recognizes Crimea as Russian – after all, the sale can only be registered in the Crimean registration authorities, today subordinate to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).
Sergei Kunitsin. Afghan ballad
Sergei Vladimirovich Kunitsyn was born on July 27, 1960 in the village of Bekdash, Krasnovodsk region, Turkmen SSR – where his father worked in geological exploration (in the oil and gas sector). Kunitsyn’s parents are ethnic Russians: his father is from Murmansk, his mother is from Saratov. In 1973, his father pulled out a lucky ticket: a transfer to Crimea to explore the deposits there, and the Kunitsyn family moved from the hell of the desert to live at a resort – at least that’s what Crimea was in the minds of 99% of Soviet citizens. However, in Crimea they settled not in Yalta or Evpatoria, but in Krasnoperekopsk.
After school, Sergei Kunitsyn entered the Simferopol branch of the Dnepropetrovsk Engineering and Construction Institute, majoring in the production of building products and structures. Surprisingly, he was not recruited into the army after his first year (although the university did not have a military department); moreover, after graduating from the institute, he worked for 8 months in his specialty: first as a pipelayer for the Perekopkhimstroy trust, then as a foreman at the KPB plant in Tyumen. According to Kunitsyn, he was assigned there. However, it is surprising that while his fellow students were invited by the military registration and enlistment office to give their honorable duty to their homeland immediately after defending their diploma, Kunitsyn managed to miss two drafts (spring-summer and autumn-winter 1982). So the question arises: did he escape from the army to distant Tyumen? He himself, of course, won’t admit to anything like that.
Further, according to Kunitsyn’s stories about his beloved self, at the Tyumen military registration and enlistment office he was offered to serve in his specialty in a construction battalion. “But I refused – I was involved in sports, I didn’t want to lose my shape. They proposed a school for sergeants. I agreed,” he said. I wonder why the athlete didn’t ask to join the Airborne Forces, Border Troops or Intelligence? However, sources Skelet.Info report an alternative version of events: the military commissar habitually threatened to send another draft dodger to a construction battalion, fortunately his specialty was suitable, in response to which Kunitsyn went all-in and asked to go to Afghanistan – not yet knowing about the details of the war there (zinc coffins were still in Krasnoperekopsk didn’t come). So Kunitsyn ended up in military unit 81102 (Ashgabat), known as the Kishinsky training regiment, and immediately managed to get into the school of sergeants. The calculation was simple: after graduation, Kunitsyn only had to serve for a year, including 6 months in training, and then demobilization was just around the corner.
Sergei Kunitsyn (left) in the army
In December 1983, the newly minted junior sergeants were distributed into units, and Kunitsin ended up in the 682nd motorized rifle regiment being formed in Termez. In March 1984, the regiment was sent to Afghanistan (Bagram), and in April it was sent to participate in the third Panjshir operation. During which the 1st battalion of this regiment, the “Royal Battalion,” was ambushed and was knocked out 50%, losing 57 killed and 105 wounded. There is no clear assessment of this battle. Some call this a criminal miscalculation of the command of the operation, they say that, due to the death of the commander in the very first minutes of the battle, the battalion was disorganized and was not even able to retreat or really create a defense, but only fired randomly, that only those who survived who was able to swim away along the stormy current of the river, and who managed to find shelter behind the rocks. Others made solemn speeches that “the guys heroically held on to the end, faithful to the oath.” But in any case, the battle was lost immediately, the battalion was defeated, and the dead no longer heard any honors or apologies.
Sergei Kunitsyn was assigned as the squad commander of the 2nd company of this battalion and, accordingly, had to participate in this battle. What really happened, and how did he manage to survive? All his life Kunitsin talks only about how his friends died before his eyes, and he himself was wounded by shrapnel “in the face, in the shoulder, in the legs,” but he bandaged himself and even refused to go to the medical center. Then he adds that a few weeks after this, he was again ambushed, a grenade exploded nearby, he was concussed and injured his spine, but again he just shook himself off and moved on. Just some kind of cyborg! Well, already in August 1984, Sergei Kunitsyn went home, having served his term.
However, what soldier doesn’t like to tell heroic stories about himself? Some ATO battalion commanders now do not leave television studios, recalling how they almost with their bare hands stopped tank columns of the Russian army and destroyed three battalions of mounted Buryat special forces at a time – and yet they believe them! Kunitsyn still kept his fantasies in check in order to look like a serious, respectable public figure, since the topic of the Afghan War became for him an additional political springboard. First, he was elected chairman of the Krasnoperekopsk district branch of the Union of Afghan Veterans, then in 2004 he headed the Crimean branch, and since 2014 he was “self-appointed” chairman of the newly created All-Ukrainian Association of Afghan Veterans. By this time, relations between Kunitsyn and the majority of the “Afghans” had become very strained, and he would hardly have received their support – but behind him stood “UDAR” and Klitschkoand therefore the entire Maidan. And Kunitsyn considered it a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity!
S. Kunitsyn at the head of the Crimean branch of the Union of Afghanistan Veterans
Even before the events of 2013-2014, members of the Crimean Union of Afghan Veterans constantly reproached Kunitsyn for using the organization for his own selfish political and corruption purposes, without at all asking the opinion of the “Afghans” themselves. Veterans of other regional branches of the Union also heard enough about Kunitsyn, both as the chairman of the Crimean branch and as a Crimean official, and they also did not like that Kunitsyn was constantly in conflict with the chairman of the All-Ukrainian Union of Afghanistan Veterans, Sergei Chervonopisky. Hero of Ukraine (since 2012), disabled person of the Afghan War, former company commander of the 350th Airborne Regiment, first commandant of Kabul Airport Sergei Vasilievich Chervonopisky is the founder and permanent chairman of the Union of Afghan Veterans since 1991 – and is respected by the “Afghans”, unlike Kunitsyna.
Sergey Vasilievich Chervonopisky
Kunitsyn had long been aiming to replace Chervonopisky, but he understood the futility of his ambitions, so he resorted to a trick: in early February 2014, in the midst of the second Maidan, he (being the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada subcommittee on veterans and disabled people) initiated an extraordinary congress of Afghan veterans in Kyiv war. It brought together mainly supporters of the opposition and Maidan (including the Afghan Hundred, which participated in the events), who adopted a declaration on the creation of a new organization – the All-Ukrainian Association of Afghanistan Veterans, at the head of which, on the recommendation of opposition leaders, Sergei Kunitsyn was elected. And this Association has become an alternative to the existing Ukrainian Union of Afghanistan Veterans. It turned out rather ugly: if in business and politics, “throwing away” your own has become the norm, then doing this to your comrades in arms is simply vile.
Well, then, after the change of power in Ukraine, the newly created Association of Afghanistan Veterans immediately received full support from the authorities (it was immediately allocated a huge office in the center of Kyiv) and became, as it were, “official.” But the old Union of Afghanistan Veterans began to be ignored by the authorities, especially when its chairman Chervonopisky began to mercilessly criticize this government. This is how two “unions of Afghans” appeared in Ukraine: one that fell out of favor, which the media has already stopped remembering, and the other, which is in favor with the authorities, whose chairman, in turn, diligently kisses her below the belt.
The new “union of Afghans” has become tame for the new government
Sergei Kunitsin. Political tags
Returning from Afghanistan, Sergei Kunitsyn somehow immediately forgot about his supposed assignment to Tyumen and stayed at home in Krasnoperekopsk, where he went to work at the local reinforced concrete plant as an engineer. Over 4 years of persistently pleasing his superiors, he rose to the rank of chief engineer of the enterprise, after which he decided to try his hand at party work. It’s hard to believe, but in the late 80s Sergei Kunitsyn was not just a member of the CPSU, he was the secretary of the party committee, and in 1989 he became an instructor in the ideological department of the Krasnoperekopsk city committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. And he would have been the secretary of the regional committee, no less, if “perestroika” had not ended with the collapse of the USSR. Kunitsyn survived this cataclysm easily, because in 1990, with the help of the city committee, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada – where he immediately began to make the necessary contacts. At the same time, he was elected chairman of the Krasnoperekopsk City Council, which he remained until 1998. As a matter of fact, thanks to this he became the chairman of the city branch of the Union of Afghanistan Veterans.
However, Kunitsyn had his own selfish interest in this. Firstly, the “Afghans” were then the same force as ATO veterans are today, albeit without the “indulgence of patriots.” In search of a better life, some of them became businessmen, some joined organized crime groups, while others, on the contrary, went to work in law enforcement agencies. In the situation of the early 90s, when Crimea fell under the influence of several large organized crime groups (“Bashmaki”, “Salem”), which did not even stop at killing government officials, the “Afghan roof” helped Kunitsyn control his Krasnoperekopsk in the shadow sector. Secondly, through the Union of Afghanistan Veterans, Kunitsyn sought the support of other organizations and their leaders, including Russian ones. Thus, his contacts with the Russian organization “Combat Brotherhood” were repeatedly reported: its leader, General Boris Gromov (Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), Governor of the Moscow Region) provided Kunitsyn with all possible assistance, and in response, through Kunitsyn, lobbied his interests in Crimea, primarily in Sevastopol . And given the close relationship between Gromov and Putin (*criminal), we can confidently say that these were also the interests of the Kremlin.
Boris Gromov
In 1993, Sergei Kunitsyn headed the new party “Union in Support of the Republic of Crimea.” Despite the rather provocative name, it was not a party of separatists, but rather of federalists. By the way, in the mid-90s, at one of the party congresses, Sergei Kunitsyn officially spoke out in support of bilingualism and the federal structure of Ukraine, and even proposed holding a referendum on these issues in the country. In the 1994 presidential elections, the “Union in Support of the Republic of Crimea,” like many Crimean parties and movements, bet on Leonid Kuchma – both because he positioned himself as a pro-Russian and pro-Russian politician, and because they hoped to “squeeze” even more out of him autonomy for Crimea. However, unlike its radically pro-Russian (almost separatist) allies, Kunitsyn’s party was categorically against secession from Ukraine and stood in opposition to the newly elected President of Crimea Meshkov even before the newly elected President Kuchma “ran over” him.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Sergei Kunitsyn: Crimean master of land acquisition and political disguise. PART 2
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