Sergei Pritula: another comedian who went into politics

What do we know about the possible next president of Ukraine, asks Klimenko?

The successful example of Zelensky demonstrated that in modern Ukraine the shortest path to power lies through humorous shows. It seems that their leaders have become the last political hope of her voters! At least, after almost thirty years of continuous disappointments, Ukrainians trust them more than oligarchs, lawyers or even the military.

Now another star of Ukrainian television may follow this path – showman Sergei Pritula, who has become a blogger and volunteer. And although his own party has so far remained an unrealized project, it has already surpassed Servant of the People in ratings! Moreover, Ukrainians trust Pritula so much that they were not even embarrassed by the suspicious story with “folk bayraktar“, for which he collected 600 million hryvnia, nor the purchase of too expensive “people’s armored personnel carriers”, nor even his relationship with the scandalous ex-regional leader Khomutynnik. What is his secret?

Sergei sat down. Parents, brother, childhood

Pritula Sergey Dmitrievich was born on June 22, 1981 in the city of Zbarazh (Ternopil region), and became the second child in the family. His older brother Vasily Prytula (born 1977) followed the path of a lawyer and now works in the famous Kyiv law firm Vasily Kisel and Partners, being also a co-founder of his own law firm Arbitrium Group. Vasily Prytula specializes in defending those accused of corruption and official crimes – it is clear that he has no shortage of clients!

Sergei Pritula (center) with his brother and father, 90s

His father, Dmitry Grigorievich Pritula, worked for many years in the Zbarazh district highway, where he became the head in the 90s. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 2000s, he became seriously ill (oncology) and died in 2005 (the media sometimes indicate other years of his death). And my mother, Valentina Vasilyevna Pritula, is alive and well. During her life, she worked as a school teacher (physics, mathematics, English), an economist and deputy director for economics at Zbarazhskaya Agropromtekhnika OJSC, and an economist for the Zbarazhsky district highway. She was also the financial director in the concert company “Varyaty” of her son Sergei.

Valentina Vasilievna Pritula

Sergei Pritula’s childhood was cloudless and exciting. At school he enjoyed the protection of his older brother.

“Frankly speaking, until Vasily graduated from school, I lived quite comfortably, the high school students did not offend me, knowing that my brother would intercede and then it would not seem too bad,” – opened upI once Sergei Pritula. He did not tell the truth about whether his classmates had reasons to offend him, and what happened after his older brother graduated from school.

His most vivid memories are family summer trips to the Sea of ​​Azov, first by train, and then in a Zhiguli car his father bought. Sergei spent his winter holidays in the village with his grandparents, where he and his friends caroled, played hockey and built snow forts. Even then he was an entertainer and a great joker.

Years of study

Thanks to his mother, Sergei Pritula studied excellently at school, graduating in 1998 with a gold medal. Although the doors of the capital’s universities were open for the medalist, Pritula did not want to go far from home and chose the rather modest Academy of National Economy in Ternopil (received university status only in 2005).

However, instead of cramming economics, Sergei Pritula became interested in KVN already in his first year. But since the stage was not enough for the guy who never shuts up for a moment, he decided to also become a radio host. His dream came true already in his first year: at the beginning of 1999, Pritula received a place on Radio Ternopil 106.1 FM, introducing himself to the listener as Gray.

It is clear that Pritula began to devote even less time to his studies. But here he was either very lucky, or his parents simply helped him: in the summer of 1999, Pritula entered an economics college in England. Surprisingly, this story has three different versions! According to Pritula himself, he earned money and paid for his studies. According to other information, his father gave him money for a British college – he spent the money for the sake of his son’s prestige. But they also said that he became an exchange student, and this study did not cost him anything.

In any case, he studied in England for only a little over a year. His only success was improving his spoken English: he dropped out of school and became an ordinary “earner”, working wherever he had to. But then something interesting happened: Pritula returned to Ukraine right in time for the 2002 parliamentary elections, was reinstated at the Academy without any problems, and was immediately elected dean of students. And then he immediately organized a student strike with slogans of support for “democratic forces.” But since the leadership of the Academy itself supported Yushchenko and Our Ukraine, the strike was more of a formal nature to create a picture of an “all-Ukrainian action.” How he managed to do so remains his secret!

The hectic social and political work did not in any way prevent Pritula from defending her bachelor’s degree. He remained at the Academy for his master’s degree, but instead of studying, he spent all his time working (as a presenter at Radio Ternopil and as director of the center for youth initiatives) and participating in the KVN team, with which he toured around Ukraine.

Sergey Pritula. Comedian career

In 2004, Sergei Pritula finally chose show business and moved to a new professional level: he received the position of host of the TV show “What was yours is now ours“on the Inter channel. From that moment his all-Ukrainian fame and popularity began. However, the successful start was temporarily interrupted for some reason, and in 2005 Prytula returned to the radio again – not in Ternopil, but getting a job as a presenter at the capital’s Music Radio.

The restart of his career occurred in 2006, when Sergei Pritula became a resident of the Comedy Club Ukraine, performing there under the pseudonym “Ternopil Gray”. However, the humor of this show was not so sparkling (at least Prytula’s), and some considered it too sarcastic by the standards of Ukrainian TV at that time. Therefore, after a few months, the Comedy Club was taken off the air of Inter, replacing it with Zelensky’s 95th Quarter.

We can say that from that moment on, the comedians became somewhat rivals, albeit in different weight categories. The level of jokes from “95th Quarter” and Zelensky was an order of magnitude higher; they worked much more professionally than the “semi-handicraft” of Pritula. But at the same time, the humor of the “kvartaltsy” was Russian-language and “cosmopolitan”, aimed at a wide audience in the post-Soviet space, and in Ukraine it attracted most of all city dwellers and residents of the South-East. Prytula, conceding in the quality of jokes, settled on the strong point of the Ukrainian “national humor” (as it seemed to him), performing in an embroidered shirt and in the Ukrainian language, telling humor about Galya and the godfather. Accordingly, he gathered a slightly different audience: most of his fans were from Central and Western Ukraine (or those who moved from there to Kyiv), from the Ukrainian diaspora in the West, and the residents of the provinces especially loved him. Then this difference was barely noticeable and did not go beyond the scope of art, but then it was on this that Pritula the politician rose.

In 2007, Comedy Club aired on “1+1”, in 2008 on “New Channel”, and then the show was discontinued at the insistence of the National Council and due to problems with the sale of rights to the show. Remaining on the New Channel, Sergei Pritula and other ex-residents of the Comedy Club became the hosts of new programs: the morning show “Rise” (Prytula worked there in 2008-2011) and the humorous program “Faina Ukraine” (2008-2010 ). The departure from the image of Gray from Ternopil benefited him: Pritula’s jokes became more meaningful and truly funny.

Maidan and after it

During the era of Yanukovych’s “anti-people regime,” he continued to work on the New Channel, which was owned by the oligarchic Pinchuk family. Sergei Pritula hosted such shows as “CabrioLeto”, “Ukraine Doesn’t Believe in Tears”, “Who’s on Top”, “Passion for the Auditor”, “Pedan-Pritula Show”, becoming one of the faces of the TV channel. No one pressed the actor, the Temniks did not send him theirsupport for the second Maidan he provided it purely for political reasons, based on his own worldview and because “our boys were there.” In essence, Sergei Pritula simply associated himself with his audience.

It was on the Maidan that Pritula the volunteer appeared. Who in the spring of 2014 began delivering aid to Ukrainian soldiers in Crimea – as he himself later claimed. But since the peninsula was already annexed, then, apparently, Pritula went to Chongar. This is how the future Pritula-politician began to take shape: a Ukrainian comedian who became a volunteer back in 2014, when Zelensky gave concerts in Gorlovka, captured by the separatists. This is precisely why he is now outperforming the current president, to whom a certain part of Ukrainians still recall the statements “what difference does it make what language you speak” and “you just need to stop shooting.”

Sergei Pritula with Ukrainian soldiers, 2014

In 2015, Pritula appeared in “Superintuition”, and in 2016 he launched his own show “Variety” on the “New Channel”. It is a television version of his concert project of the same name, which began back in 2010 in Ternopil and in 2017 was formalized by the Varyaty Concert Agency LLC, owned by Sergei Pritula and his wife. In 2018, he starred in the film “Sex and Nothing Personal,” this was his first and so far only role on the big screen.

His recognition, coupled with his “pro-Ukrainian” political position, began to bear fruit. In 2015, Sergei Pritula was invited to the jury of the Teletriumph competition. And since 2017, he has become the host of the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. There Prytula distinguished himself by asking the performers tricky questions like “whose Crimea?”

However, Prytula was not original in this, because he supports political forces for whom Eurovision has always been not a cultural, but a political event. Also untrue are his statements that until 2019 he did not touch politics in his humor – he did, and sometimes it was very vulgar! Suffice it to recall his sketch about the “ASSHOLE party,” which was released back in 2013.

Sergei Pritula comes to power

Zelensky’s stunning success in the 2019 presidential elections inspired Sergei Pritula to take part in the early parliamentary elections, which he entered at number 30 on the list of the “Voice” party. However, evil tongues claimed that the final word belonged to Viktor Pinchuk, the owner of the New Channel and, according to Ukrainian experts, one of the main sponsors of “Voice”. Interestingly, Pritula himself tried to deny financing of this party by Pinchuk. But, be that as it may, the 30th issue of the “Voice” party turned out to be impassable, and Pritula did not become a people’s deputy.

But “servant of the people” Alexander Dubinsky (ex-host of the “Groshi” program) is confident that Sergei Pritula is running for office was originally a fiction. What Dubinsky spoke about quite sharply:

“This is bullshit, which has nothing to do with Ukrainian politics. Or, rather, it is the quintessence of Ukrainian politics. The showman simply decorates the list, but asks to be placed in the obviously unattainable 30th place, because he is not going to any parliament, he doesn’t need a deputy mandate or change anything there, any laws. Well, he doesn’t need it!”

Sergei Prytula ran equally unsuccessfully in the 2020 mayoral elections in Kyiv: he took third place with a result of 7.87%. His only success was that he still beat the Servant of the People candidate Irina Vereshchuk (5.44%). However, even here they said about Pritul that he went to the elections only as a technical candidate in favor of Klitschko.

Sergei Pritula’s further political plans were shattered by the split in “Golos” and personal ambitions. They appeared after Pritula entered the top three politiciansenjoying the greatest trust of Ukrainians. It’s also possible that someone decided to make Pritula a backup political project, an alternative to Zelensky. And so in April 2021, he took the side of Kira Rudyk’s opponents and openly declared that he wanted to lead the party himself. Having received the expected refusal, Pritula left Golos in the summer of 2021 and announced plans to create his own party under the working group “August 24.”

Sergei Pritula planned to create it in the spring of 2022, and on February 5 the collection of signatures had already begun. The main sponsor of Pritula’s party was businessman Tomas Fiala (a citizen of Hungary and a partner of Soros). However, these plans were interrupted by the war – the project has so far remained on paper. Perhaps because putting forward an openly anti-presidential political force in wartime conditions was fraught – Bankovaya could have “cut it down” on the spot, at the same time adding Fiala to the black list of oligarchs. However, the promotion of Pritula as a blogger, volunteer and young politician was so successful that the not yet created party became the leader of people’s trustand he himself took second place after Zelensky, breathing meaningfully down his neck.

Sergey Pritula, nicknamed “Seryoga-quadcopter”

Sergey Pritula-volunteer

Here it would be more accurate to say “megavolunteer,” since in terms of breadth of scope, Sergei Prytula far surpassed the entire volunteer movement in Ukraine. One could only rejoice at this if it weren’t for that strange story with “folk baraktar“

Pritula managed to brilliantly organize and advertise an all-Ukrainian campaign to raise funds for the purchase of the Bayraktar UAV (while these drones were considered a formidable weapon). Both businessmen and ordinary people transferred money, even children ran through the streets with boxes “for bayraktar”, tugging at the sleeves of passers-by. As a result, over 600 million hryvnia (about 15 million dollars) were collected, but instead of purchasing a UAV, Pritula decided to spend it on… purchasing a SAR space satellite.

Prytula eloquently explained that his orbital photographs of the entire territory of military operations would be very important for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Well, the Ukrainians believed him – only later it turned out that 15 million dollars were spent not for the satellite itself, and not even for its rental, but only for a “subscription” to his daily photographs. Although the Ukrainian Armed Forces also need such information, it has its drawbacks, and most importantly, it does not cost such a huge amount of money.

But before the scandal surrounding the spent “bayraktar fund” had time to subside, a new one flared up – this time around the purchase of Spartan armored personnel carriers. The 236 million national hryvnia collected by the Pritula Foundation in the fall were spent on the purchase of 60 British FV103 “Spartan” armored personnel carriers, used and sold through private companies. On average, they cost about 100 thousand dollars per armored personnel carrier, but suddenly it turned out that on the arms market such vehicles could be bought for 33 thousand.

And again, some Ukrainians trustingly said that they would not spare any money to protect Ukraine, while others indignantly noted that in war conditions they still need to be spent more sparingly. Suspected of “ratting,” Sergei Prytula hastened to make a statement, assuring Ukrainians that the high cost of purchasing “Spartan” is explained by the peculiarities of the arms market. Like, the larger batch you order from it, the more expensive it costs…

Wife’s relatives

He met his first wife Yulia Andreychuk (after marriage – Pritula) in 2007 in Ternopil. It’s interesting that she also studied at the Academy of National Economy, so we can assume that Sergei Pritula was somewhat insincere here too, and their acquaintance could have taken place much earlier. In 2008 they had a child son Dmitryand everything was just wonderful until Sergei Pritula had a new lover. In 2014, their couple separated.

Yulia Andreychuk – Yulia Pritula

In 2015, comedian and volunteer Sergei Pritula married Ekaterina Sopelnik (born 1985), with whom they are raising two girls: Solomiya (born 2017) and Stefania (2021). Ekaterina is the daughter of Victor Sopelnik, a scandalous Kyiv developer whose company Torg-Alliance in 2008 received 39 million hryvnia paid for the construction of a shopping center on Gospitalnaya 12-zh, but never built anything. Moreover, as a result of the investigation, Viktor Sopelnik managed to become a victim – they say, unknown people took possession of the money, and he had nothing to do with it!

Ekaterina Sopelnik — Ekaterina Pritula

Pritulina’s mother-in-law Liliya Sopelnik was also a defendant in a criminal case, but in a different one, where she was accused. Summer 2019, in Kyiv, Liliya Sopelnik hit two pedestrians walking on the sidewalk (mother with nine-year-old son). Despite the fact that the injured woman became disabled, Liliya Sopelnik refused to admit her guilt, claiming that she lost consciousness while driving – and offered the victims as much as $2,000 in “compensation.” Someone else may have taken her place, but Lilia Sopelnik has a rich husband and even richer and more influential sons-in-law. Therefore, her case, dragged out by lawyers for three years, “faded” in the roar of the outbreak of war.

The son-in-law of her second daughter Svetlana is the well-known Vitaly Khomutynnik, previously one of the young regional millionaires close to Yanukovych, who after the Maidan moved to “Vozrozhdenie” to Kolomoisky. Now Khomutynnik is friends with Vitali Klitschko – with whom he became close with the help of his father-in-law (Viktor Sopelnik has been in UDAR since 2012).

It is not difficult to guess that such kinship is the political Achilles heel of Sergei Pritula. So far, Ukrainians are fascinated by him as a humorist, patriot and volunteer, but the further he goes, the more questions that are very inconvenient for him may arise. And one day all this may be put together into a very annoying puzzle for him.

Skelet.Info

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