Valery Geletey
Ukrainian officials live much better than the people they are supposed to serve. The declaration of another “prominent Ukrainian” Valery Geletey, who again holds the post of head of the State Security Administration, indicates 217,567 hryvnia of salary for the year and another 370 thousand hryvnia of other income. However, for a man who recently spent one and a half million on his son’s wedding, this is clearly not the only source of food. Moreover, during his very long and very rapid career, he was never accused of corruption or other crimes. Do you want to find out how to always remain pure and uninvolved while walking briskly up the career ladder? Ask Geletey about it! Although he is unlikely to answer you…
A very lucky young man
Valery Viktorovich Geletey was born on August 28, 1967 in the village of Verkhniy Koropets, Mukachevo district, Transcarpathian region. Immediately after graduating from high school, he got a job in the regional center, as an auto electrician ATP-06011. Fortunately, the journey from home to work took only a few stops of a commuter bus, on which employees of their automobile enterprises could ride for free. However, this was the only advantage of his first job: it is unlikely that yesterday’s schoolboy without special education and work experience would have been entrusted with something more complicated than washing old batteries. It is not surprising that later, after the army, Geletey never returned to his native motor depot.
And yet, during his work as a car mechanic, Valery Geletey clearly did not waste his time, as evidenced by the place of his further military service: military unit 2142, better known as the Mukachevo border detachment. Service in the Border Troops of the KGB of the USSR was then considered the most prestigious, and selection for it was carried out not only according to physical criteria for recruits. How many Soviet conscripts were lucky enough to serve near their home? A simple rural boy, Valery Geletey, received both, and even a third: he did not have to run along the slopes of the Carpathians with a dog on a leash, he worked as a junior controller, that is, he helped check documents at the border checkpoint. And he still prefers to remain silent about the secret of his incredible success.
In the spring of 1988, the doors of all law enforcement agencies of the Soviet Union were opened to the demobilized border guard, and even so lucky. Geletey chose a “non-dusty” position as an employee of the private security service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which, however, he soon left to study at the Ivano-Frankivsk police school (1988-1990), after which he took up the position of criminal investigation officer of the Mukachevo Department of Internal Affairs – that is, he became a real “ cop.” Like his older brother Vladimir Viktorovich Geletey.
But, apparently, the fame of the provincial opera brothers also did not suit Valery, because two years later he entered the Academy of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Having completed it in 1994, he was immediately transferred to the capital’s Organized Crime Control Department, where his new rapid rise began.
The untouchables of the Transcarpathian “tsimbora”
The first rule of a hussar: if general epaulettes cannot be earned in battle, then they can be obtained through a successful marriage. Perhaps Valery Geletey did just that, since the beginning of his career in the Ministry of Internal Affairs coincided with his marriage to Angela Popovich, who is called a relative of either Vasily Durdinets himself or his assistant. Well, given the national tradition of taking relatives as assistants, both options may be correct. But since father and daughter Popovich are residents of the capital Brovary, and only went to Transcarpathia to a sanatorium, they deny any family connection with Durdinets, even in the fifth generation.
However, it is interesting that the old Soviet functionary Durdinets, who had enormous influence on the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the 90s and was a favorite of Kuchma, is a fellow countryman of the Geleteyevs: he himself comes from the village of Romochevitsa, which is 9 km from Verkhniy Koropets. Of course, given the difference in return, and the fact that Durdynets worked in leadership positions in Lvov and then in Kyiv from the 60s, it is unlikely that he had previously crossed paths with Valery and Vladimir, who are old enough to be his sons, personally, but they are related
Victor Baloha
the brooms could have been acquaintances. After all, their villages are practically nearby, like their native Zavidovo, another significant figure in the biography of Valeriy Geletey – the famous Transcarpathian oligarch and “gray cardinal” Victor Baloga (read more about him in the article VIKTOR BALOGA. THE PHENOMENON OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN GOD).
But from 1987 to 1992, the future oligarch was still only a commodity expert at the Mukachevo economic and commodity base, and then the director of Rei Promin LLC. And although there were rumors that Balogh allegedly held the “Mukachevo common fund” at that time, even in this case his influence hardly went beyond the region. So it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for him to help Valery Geletey build a career in the capital’s Organized Crime Control Department. Therefore, it is more logical to assume that in the 90s he was a protégé of Vasily Durdinets, and only then began a closer rapprochement with Viktor Baloga.
In the early 90s, fate gave both brothers a start in life, but they disposed of them differently. The elder remained to work in the Mukachevo Organized Crime Control Department, since he could hardly graduate from the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs even with such impressive support: his colleagues said that Geletey Sr. made fifty grammatical errors in the protocol or report. But he was distinguished by his ability to work with “clients”, who soon shuddered at the mere mention of his nickname “Geiza”. The Mukak Organized Crime Control Department mercilessly fought against all organized crime and smuggling that was not part of the “trade union” of the local “tsimbora”. In the process, a very close rapprochement between Vladimir Geletey and Viktor Baloga took place, whose company was later joined by Tiberiy Durdinets, the nephew of the eminent veteran of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
But Valery Geletey, who settled in Kyiv, was hardly interested in the affairs of his Transcarpathian relatives and fellow countrymen. He had a lot of worries of his own, because business and organized crime in the capital were developing much more rapidly, and there was no need to waste time.
Apartment combinations
The appointment of Valery Geletey in 1996 as the head of the Minsk district Organized Crime Control Department of the city of Kyiv surprisingly coincided with the purchase by his father-in-law of a three-room apartment on the fourteenth floor of an eighteen-story building on Tychyny Avenue. Three years later, Geletey himself bought an apartment nearby in his own name, after which the two living spaces merged into one large family nest. By modern standards, it’s not so chic, but then the salaries of the heads of the regional Organized Crime Control Department were very modest, and the “lard from the parents” would not have been enough to buy even an old barn in Kyiv.
Geletey Jr. never advertised the origin of his “stash”, being much more cautious than his older brother. However, according to operational information leaked to the media, in the period from 1996 to 2005, while holding senior positions in the capital’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Valery Geletey had many “business” contacts with officials, businessmen and leaders of organized crime groups in Kyiv. In particular, as the head of the Oktyabrsky District Department of Internal Affairs (2000), he had close relations with the management of the TNK-Ukraine company and turned a blind eye to the not entirely “transparent” allocation of land plots for gas stations for it. Geletey was also credited with connections with the capital’s criminal authorities Vladimir Kisil, Boris Sovlokhov, Tatarin, Pryshch, and with leaders of the Caucasian diaspora. However, he could explain this as an operational necessity, and other accusations as a malicious slander.
It would be much more difficult for him to justify his apartment combinations. So, on August 4, 2005, the head of the capital’s Organized Crime Control Department (!) Valery Geletey turned out to be officially homeless because he sold his “double” apartment. He modestly kept silent about the availability of housing for his wife (Brovary, 8th Congress of Soviets Street 31) and mother-in-law (ibid., building 33), where the construction of the cottage began. And having temporarily registered in the dormitory of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at 18 Grekova Street, he stood in line to receive government housing. Already on November 29 of the same year, on the instructions of the head of the Shevchenko district administration, the Geleteyev family received an apartment in the center of Kyiv (Shevchenko Boulevard 11/6) with an area of 96.7 square meters.
On December 19, by order of the same head of the Shevchenko Regional State Administration (No. 5554), this apartment was transferred to Geletey into private ownership, that is, “privatized.” The estimated market value of the apartment is 2,500,000 hryvnia, that is, more than 500 thousand dollars, but a needy fighter against organized crime got it for a nominal fee.
It is worth noting that since then Valery Getelei’s living conditions have improved significantly. Thus, in the latest declarations, he indicated not only the mentioned apartment on Shevchenko Boulevard, but also a house within Kyiv with an area of 651 sq.m., as well as a “country house” with an area of 275 sq.m. However, these will only be modest “khatyns” if rumors about Geletey’s acquisition of an estate in a picturesque area near Imingham (Lincolnshire, England) are confirmed.
Lord Commander of the Presidential Guard
A new takeoff in Valeriy Geletey’s career began with the appointment of Viktor Baloga as the new head of the Presidential Secretariat of the President of Ukraine in the fall of 2006. He immediately took him to the Secretariat as its head of service for law enforcement issues. The position is somewhat abstract for the average citizen to understand, but not useless for the one who invented it. At that time, the confrontation between the Bank and the “anti-Orange” coalition that formed the Yanukovych government was intensifying. Baloga, who volunteered to save Yushchenko, placed his people in key positions in the leadership of security forces, where possible, or created new ones.
At the same time, Baloga’s people were stationed on the main “streams”. Tiberiy Durdinets became deputy head of the SBU, heading the department for combating smuggling – having become fairly famous in this position as a person involved in many corruption scandals. But Vladimir Geletey became the deputy head of the UAS in the Transcarpathian region.
Valery Geletey did not get involved in their “business” here either. In addition, he soon found something more important to do: on May 24, 2007, he was appointed head of the State Security Administration of Ukraine. It would seem not the most profitable position, but Geletey Jr. showed miracles of resourcefulness. In particular, with his and Baloga’s assistance, the Uzin military airfield (Belaya Tserkov) was leased to commercial structures for 49 years! The scandal was so loud that the BYuT faction filed an application to the Prosecutor General’s Office and a petition to the resident demanding that the lease agreement be declared invalid.
And yet, the main task of Valery Geletey was to protect “body No. 1”. Perhaps not in the literal sense, since the assassination attempt on Yushchenko, even during the then political crisis, seemed unthinkable and generally pointless. If there was anyone worth protecting, it was Baloga herself and Yulia Tymoshenko, since it was her intransigence that did not allow the “broad coalition” to happen and pushed the President to fight. However, the State Security Administration at that time still played the role of a small, but combat-ready and politically reliable security agency, necessary for Bankova in the most urgent case.
And this incident almost happened on the very first day of Geletey’s work in his new position, when he and his employees went to the Prosecutor General’s Office to prevent the dismissed Svyatoslav Piskun from entering it. The then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vasily Tsushko with the Berkut detachment hastened to help the latter. After a small skirmish, Geletey wisely yielded to force, but a little more, and a civil war could have broken out in Ukraine.
Further confrontation demonstrated Valery Geletey’s complete loyalty, if not to Yushchenko himself, then to his “cardinal” Baloga. And it was rewarded not just generously, but even abundantly. A rain of general stars fell on the “chief guard”: June 2007 – Major General, August 2007 – Lieutenant General, August 2008 – Colonel General! This was against all traditions, against the rules, in some ways even in violation of the law, and played against Geletey, who began to be called “protégé general” and “major general.”
UBOP banker
In May 2009, Baloga left the Presidential Secretariat, giving up on the depressed Viktor Yushchenko. Everyone immediately started saying that his protege Valery Geletey was also “no longer a tenant.” This is what happened after a month and a half. His dismissal was openly political, so much so that no one even bothered to come up with a more or less compelling reason for it, at least formally. Moreover, Geletey was not transferred to another position, he was not given a place in another department, he was not allowed to return back to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but was simply put out on the street. Although, on the other hand, they didn’t open a case, although they could have!
For two years, the Ukrainian media were silent about Geletey, and Ukrainian ordinary people were not too interested in the fate of the country’s former chief security guard. He quietly “surfaced” in 2011 as vice president of Avant Bank, in the company of Alexander Savchenko and Valery Yarema. The first was his colleague in the capital’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (now a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the BPP), and the second is the son of another fellow UBP member Vitaly Yarema (he was deputy prime minister in Yatsenyuk’s first government, then the Prosecutor General, read more about him in the article Vitaly Yarema. “Honest Cop” “and godfather of Sergei Dumchev). Although Geletey was officially listed only as the “curator of the bank’s security service,” his new place of work caused many rumors, confirmed by the leaking and dumping of various interesting information. “Avant” was called the bank of Kyiv Organized Crime Control officers, and Geletey with Yarema and Savchenko were not just its honorary vice-presidents.
This company also included Yuri Ivanyushchenko, who was somehow involved in the same bank, better known under the nickname “Yura Enikievsky.” However, the latter at that time was involved in many Ukrainian banks and cash flows in general – after all, power in the country passed to the “Donetsk” ones, who were actively “taking the loot” out of the country. However, that’s another story! But the current one was continued in 2015, when Avant-Bank accounts received several billion hryvnias from the accounts of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Reserve Fund (allocated for the construction of fortifications), where they were successfully stuck for some unknown reason. After which, at the beginning of 2016, Avant Bank went bankrupt, at the same time defrauding its gullible investors. And since in the fall of 2015, the new management of Avant officially announced that neither Geletey, nor Savchenko, nor Yarema had anything to do with the bank anymore, now there is simply no one to ask.
Field Marshal Ilovaisky
As you know, money is a gainful thing. Ukrainians could forgive Valery Geletey and his apartments, and three general ranks in a year, and even participation in Avant Bank schemes. If they hadn’t forgiven me, they would have simply forgotten about it in a couple of months. However, Ukrainians will not forget and are unlikely to forgive him for two episodes from his stormy activities in 2014.
Geletey Ilovaisky
In early April, restored by decree of the acting. President-Speaker Turchynov (read more about him in the article Alexander Turchynov. Skeletons in the closet of the “bloody pastor” of Ukraine), in the position of head of the State Security Administration, Valery Geletey accompanied the landing of Kyiv politicians led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk in Donetsk, who arrived for a political settlement of the conflict. It did not work out to settle the matter amicably; the parties did not listen to each other, but Geletey had State Security officers and an entire company of Bulat special forces at his disposal. In fact, their mere arrival scared away the rebels, who seized the buildings of the SBU and the regional administration – and fled from there at the sight of armed fighters in full protective equipment.
Later they said that it was only necessary to gain a foothold there for a few days and wait for reinforcements, or at least continue to divert the attention of the militants. However, after a mysterious telephone conversation with an unknown person, Geletey ordered the security forces to urgently leave Donetsk. And this allowed the separatists to recapture administrative buildings and proclaim their “republic”, and Girkin’s militants to move to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk to block the National Guard columns heading towards Donetsk there. It is still not known with whom exactly Geletey spoke then, but the names of Akhmetov, “Yura Enakievsky” and the people serving as a liaison between them and the former Kyiv “ubopovites” who became Avant shareholders are mentioned.
Geletey’s hasty departure from Donetsk may remain a little-known mystery of Ukrainian history, which cannot be said about the Ilovaisk tragedy that thundered throughout the world, for which Valery Geletey bears direct responsibility as Minister of Defense, which he was from July 3 to October 14, 2014. It was because of her that he “became famous” for a long time as the most boastful and unsuccessful Ukrainian military leader, receiving the mocking nickname “Geletey-Ilovaisky” from his enemies.
However, is it only Ilovaisk? Before it there was a “cauldron” near Izvarino, and after it the tragedy of the surrounded Ukrainian paratroopers at the Lugansk airport. However, the Ministry of Defense under the leadership of Geletey paid attention not to the progress of the ATO, but to the preparation and holding of a military parade in Kyiv on Independence Day. Moreover, this is the most harmless version of events, since there is also an opinion that the fault was not negligence and the desire to curry favor with the commander-in-chief, but paid betrayal.
Well, perhaps Valery Geletey was a good “ubopovtsy”, head of the State Security Service and vice-president of the bank, but he turned out to be, to put it mildly, a bad minister of defense. However, he was not even reprimanded for the senseless deaths of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in the “cauldrons” that disgraced our army: the parliamentary investigation into the causes of the military disaster was blocked by pro-presidential factions, and after the early elections to the Rada this issue was not even raised there. Valery Geletey got off for Ilovaisk only with his resignation and transfer to his previous place of work. Where he continued to protect his already third president (including acting Turchinov), which he seems to be doing quite well so far, and to organize luxurious weddings for his children.
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info