Sergei Kunitsyn: Crimean master of land grabbing and political disguise. PART 2

CONTINUATION. BEGINNING: Sergei Kunitsyn: Crimean master of land acquisition and political disguise. PART 1

But one should not be mistaken and consider Kunitsyn a Ukrainian patriot. According to sources Skeleton.infoalready at the beginning of 1994, Kunitsyn received firm guarantees from Moscow that the Yeltsin administration would not support the adventure of the Crimean separatists – which means that, relying only on their own forces, they were in a losing position. And Kunitsyn hastened to support not only Leonid Kuchma, but also Kyiv – especially since his connections in the capital promised him good prospects in the Ukrainian Crimea. From that moment on, Kunitsyn became a clearly pro-Kiev Crimean politician, quarreling with his pro-Russian colleagues.

The bet on Kuchma paid off: already in the fall of 1994, Kunitsyn had a long, confidential conversation with Leonid Kuchma, who began to provide him with constant patronage in all respects. Kunitsyn’s second important Kyiv ally was Valery Pustovoitenko, with whom he became friends while a member of the Rada. Through Pustovoitenko, in 1994, Kunitsyn became close to Valery Khoroshkovsky. In 1996, Kunitsyn, Khoroshkovsky and Pustovoitenko, with the support of Leonid Kuchma, created Ukraine’s first free economic zone (FEZ) “Sivash”, the administrative center of which was located in Krasnoperekopsk and was headed by Kunitsyn. During the operation of this zone, billions passed through it – most of them shadow and corrupt, often simply criminal. It was they, according to sources, that in 1997 became the cause of the conflict between Kunitsyn and the Salem organized crime group: someone “dumped” someone, and the bandits were going to go to Kunitsyn “for a showdown.” Kunitsyn rushed to the phone to call Pustovoitenko in Kyiv, he turned to Kuchma almost in the middle of the night – and special forces were sent to protect Kunitsyn, and then Gennady Moskal was sent to Crimea, who defeated Salem, and at the same time caused significant damage to Bashmaki – in which helped Valery Khoroshkovsky, who wanted to take over their vodka business (the Soyuz-Victan company).

At the same time, Kunitsyn had the support of the “Crimean patriarch” Anatoly Franchuk, whose son Igor Franchuk was the first husband of Leonid Kuchma’s daughter (before Viktor Pinchuk). The Franchuk family clan was the first to begin seizing oil and gas enterprises in Crimea, getting fabulously rich from the resale of gasoline and gas. In this matter they had allies: the Chechens of Zia Bazhaev, the companies of David Zhvania, the Russian LUKOIL of Vagit Alekperov, the companies of Nikolai Martynenko, as well as the structures of Petro Poroshenko, through which in 2002-2004. The French people donated money to the election campaign of “Our Ukraine” and Viktor Yushchenko.

Thanks to Pustovoitenko, in 1997 Kunitsyn headed the Crimean branch of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and in 2005 he became the first deputy leader of the party. And in 1998, Kunitsyn turned into a kind of political gag for Kyiv, when elections to the autonomous parliament brought victory to local communists led by Leonid Grach (38 seats out of 100). It was from Kyiv that they persistently recommended that the new Crimean parliament elect Kunitsyn as head of the government of the autonomy – to which Hrach’s supporters initially agreed. But already in 2000, they began to try to dismiss Kunitsyn, who was personally defended by President Kuchma, who threatened Grach with the dissolution of the Crimean parliament. The confrontation between Hrach and Kuchma lasted a year and a half and had many negative political consequences, which came back to haunt them in 2014. And yet, Kuchma gave in: in June and July 2001, the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted twice more for Kunitsyn’s resignation, after which he resigned and was immediately appointed advisors to the President of Ukraine. The resignation did not last long: having united with the party “Regions of Ukraine” (Poroshenko, Azarov, Landik, Rybak), SDPU (o), Agrarian Party, “Mejlis”, as well as the “Union” party of the influential criminal businessman Lev Mirimsky (associated with the organized crime group “Bashmaki” “), Kunitsyn, following the 2002 elections, created in the Crimean parliament the “pro-Kiev” majority (67 votes), which he was entrusted with overseeing. And this majority elected him chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea for the second time.

Sergei Kunitsyn

In April 2005, on the strong recommendation of the new President Yushchenko, Sergei Kunitsyn almost voluntarily resigned. Formally, the reason for the resignation was Kunitsyn’s overly zealous support for the candidacy of Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 elections – although Yushchenko was not angry with him for this, and immediately took on the newly dismissed prime minister as an adviser. In reality, the team of Yulia Tymoshenko insisted on this, which sought to place Anatoly Matvienko at the head of the Crimean government. But in June 2006, Sergei Kunitsyn was appointed head of the Sevastopol city state administration. Again, in this case, formally Kunitsyn was a kind of “pro-Ukrainian” leader of the city, who was supposed to restrain the “anti-Ukrainian” initiatives of the city council. This was true regarding political issues, but Kunitsyn and the deputies of the Sevastopol City Council found a common language on economic issues, especially regarding land acquisition.

By the way, he was not a particularly “pro-Ukrainian” head of Sevastopol. On the one hand, Kunitsyn supported the opening of a Ukrainian school in the city – and all the media wrote how he bravely opposed the “anti-Ukrainian” city council on this issue. On the other hand, when it came to the withdrawal of the Russian fleet from Sevastopol, Kunitsyn backed down. He either stated that “this issue is none of our business, it is being resolved at the presidential level,” or complained that the withdrawal of the Russian Black Sea Fleet would destroy the city’s economy, and no projects to transform the base into a commercial port would save Sevastopol. And this was understandable: if Kunitsyn’s friends in Moscow were not at all against Ukrainian schools in Sevastopol (after all, this only gave an excuse to pro-Russian radicals), then the Russians had no intention of withdrawing their fleet from Crimea – as subsequent events showed.

In 2008, after leaving the decaying NDP, Kunitsyn became deputy chairman of the newly created United Center party, then nicknamed a politically faceless bunch of corrupt officials and opportunists. And in 2010, after Viktor Yanukovych won the presidential election, Sergei Kunitsyn changed his shoes again. And although he was removed from the post of head of the Sevastopol state administration, in April 2010 Yanukovych made him his representative in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. And in November 2010, Kunitsyn was elected to the Crimean parliament on the list of the Union party of Lev Mirimsky – moreover, the program of this party initially proclaimed the political goal of the union of Ukraine, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and Belarus (hence the name of the party).

Sergei Kunitsyn changes clothes

In April 2012, Kunitsyn persuaded the head of the Union of Afghan Veterans, Chervonopisky, to create the Party of Afghanistan Veterans (based on the Ukrainian Justice Party), which he immediately used as a launching pad for the election campaign to the Verkhovna Rada. However, very soon Kunitsyn quarreled with Chervonopisky: firstly, on the issue of leadership (Kunitsyn was declared in an attempt to raid the party), and secondly, because he began to put his eggs in different baskets. The fact is that when the ratings of the new party remained at the level of 1%, Kunitsyn decided to enter parliament on the list of “UDAR” Klitschko – offering him the support of the “Afghans” in exchange for a passing place on the list (for himself). However, this caused sharp objections from both Chervonopisky and most of the members of the Union of Veterans. As a result, a deep split occurred in the Union: a minority led by Kunitsyn were expelled from the organization in 2013, joining UDAR. At the same time, Kunitsyn even lost the support of his own Crimean branch of the Union of Afghanistan Veterans. And, according to Chervonopisky, Kunitsin simply fled from Crimea, because in addition to the negative attitude of almost all the political and social forces of the peninsula, he received a “surprise” in the form of impending criminal cases on the facts of land plunder. Sergei Kunitsyn had no choice but to find refuge in the “patriotic opposition” in Kyiv and hide behind a deputy mandate.

However, this did not prevent Kunitsyn from receiving the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin (*criminal) in 2013 for “his great contribution to strengthening friendship and cooperation with the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism).”

Sergei Kunitsyn: now – “embroiderer”!

After creating his own Association of Afghan Veterans, Kunitsyn became so emboldened that at the end of February 2014 he promised Turchinov and Yatsenyuk to gather “battalions of Afghans” in Crimea and throw them at “anti-Maidanovites” and separatists. And Turchinov, believing, appointed Kunitsyn as his representative in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, in defense of Ukraine and its new government, Kunitsyn was unable to gather even a platoon in Crimea – and a few days later he fled the peninsula again. Perhaps, if instead of him an experienced negotiator who enjoyed authority in the region had been appointed to Crimea, the Crimean events could have followed a different scenario. However, Kunitsyn was already such an odious figure that his appointment only strengthened the anti-Kiev sentiments of the Crimeans. It seemed that both Mosiychuk’s threats about “friendship trains” and Kunitsyn’s appointment were deliberate provocations, in unison with Kiselev’s hysterics, rocking the situation on the peninsula.

At the end of March 2014, acting The President of Ukraine and his representative in Crimea exchanged “courtesy”: Kunitsyn accused the new Kyiv government of “toothlessness,” and Turchynov fired him for “improper performance of official duties.” But he wasn’t without work for long: on June 24, 2014, new President Petro Poroshenko appointed Kunitsyn as his adviser by decree No. 550/2014. A few months later, Sergei Kunitsyn was elected as a people’s deputy on the list of the Poroshenko Bloc.

How rich is Sergei Kunitsyn?

The size of the kickbacks that Kunitsyn received as the administrator of the Sivash FEZ remained a secret, known only to a narrow circle of oligarchs (Khoroshkovsky, Firtash, Alexander Abramov, the late Lev Mirimsky) and former high-ranking officials (Pustovoytenko, Franchuk, Kunitsyn, Grach) . But because of these SEZs, created specifically for the speedy enrichment of the oligarchs, the state lost hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the budget. However, Kunitsyn (perhaps on the advice of Pustovoitenko) prudently hedged his bets by appointing his friend Alexander Liev to a responsible position in Sivash (to sign documents) – against whom several criminal cases were later opened. But Kunitsyn pulled out his friend, and even then helped him get elected to the Armed Forces of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (he fled Crimea with him after the Euromaidan).

More is known about Kunitsyn’s corruption schemes for the supply of fuel oil at inflated prices to the Krymteplokomunenergo enterprise, which were carried out through Energy Systems of Ukraine LLC in 1998-2001, during his first Crimean premiership.

Kunitsyn also hedged his bets during the robbery of Sevastopol real estate. In this he was helped by the chairman of the supervisory board of the KrymNIIproekt Institute, Alexander Gress (the institute was raided in 2006 by Kunitsyn’s people), who were also controlled in Sevastopol by the Land Resources Department and the State Land Cadastre Center, and by the head of the Capital Construction Department, Andrei Malyshev. Gress was involved in the illegal distribution and sale of hundreds of hectares of land in the territory of the sanatorium and park area and valuable vineyards. In particular, these areas were allocated to the cooperatives: “Blagopoluchny”, “Berkut 08”, “Ellada”, “Khersones 21”, “Rainbow”, “Peschinka”, “Mirage”, “Cossack Bay”, “Admiralskaya-1”, “Slobozhansky”, “Tavrida”, “Georgievsky”, “Rook”, “Horizon”, “Miranda”, “Frigate”, “Plateau”.

Only his last two days of work as head of the Sevastopol city administration, according to Skelet.InfoSergei Kunitsyn hastily distributed plots to house-building cooperatives in Victory Park, on Primorsky Boulevard, in the areas of Drevnyaya, Katernaya, Letchikov, Pozharova streets, in Streletskaya Bay, on Cape Fiolent. DSK “Terra-Yug” received 7 hectares of coastal land, DSK “Mango” 7 hectares, DSK “Parus-7” 2.12 hectares, DSK “Yunona” 2.12 hectares, DSK “Baikal” received 1.5 hectares on the cape Aya. In the Ayazma (Fig) tract the land was received by: DSK “Sokolok” 22 hectares, “Druzhba-1” and “Druzhba-8” 14.2 hectares, “Chizhok” 22 hectares, “Druzhba-9” 24 hectares, “Shchegolek” 22 hectare!

And Malyshev, among other things, carried out frauds and scams in city tenders: for example, he pocketed almost half of the funds allocated for repair and restoration work. Another close associate of Kunitsyn, the chairman of the “Credit Union” Yuzhny, simply stole more than 60 million hryvnia from his investors! In 2010, all of Kunitsyn’s henchmen were arrested, but he himself got out safely, and still claims that the city council was to blame for everything. But the matter did not end there: if the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office only opened cases of illegal alienation of land, then the Russian one began the process of returning these plots to the ownership of the city – and now people who bought apartments and houses there are afraid that they will simply be demolished (Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) has one experience).

Sergei Kunitsyn’s wedding in 1985: how young we were!

Sergei Kunitsyn even managed to rob his business partner Dmitry Firtash! The case concerned the Tavriya football club, which Kunitsyn took over back in the 90s, and in 2004 he persuaded Firtash to become its sponsor. The oligarch agreed and regularly transferred impressive sums to the club – which, as it turned out, did not fully reach the addressee. The scandal came to light in 2012, and although the “rat” was never officially found, after that Firtash quarreled with Kunitsyn. But the oligarch sponsored not only FC, but also Kunitsyn’s election projects in 2010 and 2012!

But this was not enough for Kunitsyn. In 2013, Kunitsyn began to divorce his wife Natalya, whom he married back in 1985. According to Natalya, the reason for the divorce was Kunitsyn’s new hobby: the “violent” 35-year-old beauty Yulia Gogina. It would seem, well, it happens – gray hair in a beard, and a demon in a rib! However, at the same time, Sergei Kunitsyn behaved like a pig, deciding to deprive his wife of everything – both money and real estate (including that very “shell rock palace”). In turn, Sergei Kunitsyn stated that he left all his property to Natalia and his children (they already have an adult daughter and son), and that he was leaving his family “naked and barefoot.”

Yulia Gogina is the new passion of Sergei Kunitsyn

Indeed, in 2016, in his electronic declaration to “naked and barefoot,” Kunitsyn indicated only an old UAZ 3163, 5 million hryvnia in a bank account and half a million hryvnia in annual income – including a deputy’s salary, an Afghanistan veteran’s pension and interest on deposits. But he registered “AUDI Q7” and “BMW X6” for his new wife Yulia Gogina, an apartment in Kyiv with an area of ​​400 square meters. meters, two boutiques. However, after journalists persistently asked him to be more honest and not hide, in particular, his real estate in Crimea, Kunitsyn replied that he could not include all his property in the declaration, because this would create threats to the lives of his relatives. But what did he mean?

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

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