Vasily Astion: family union of corruption and crime. PART 2

BEGINNING: Vasily Astion: a family union of corruption and crime. PART 1

“Koshlyakovites” especially distinguished themselves during the events of 2014, when corruption and crime merged with politics. Firstly, during the assault Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration by activists of the local Maidan. Among the attackers were many “ultras,” organized by national radical (and at the same time “KGB informer”) Andrei Denisenko. And the riot police that counterattacked them were helped by “titushki”, whom they recognized as athletes from the Leon sports club, led by security guards from the Leon private security company (the club was created on the basis of the private security company’s training center).

The paradox is that Denisenko worked not only for the former SBU colonel Ivan Stupak (who became a deputy from the Party of Regions), but also for the “privatists”, from whose hands he fed. Moreover, these were the hands of Korban and Koshlyak specifically! It is not surprising that this assault was later called a specially staged performance.

Immediately after the Maidan victory, the “Koshlyaklovites” en masse signed up for the Dnepropetrovsk “Right Sector”, the leader of which they unanimously elected Denisenko, and then created their own military-patriotic organization “Sich”. They, together with Denisenko’s nationalists and ultras, became the basis of the Dnepr-1 battalion. The “fathers” of this volunteer battalion were called Korban and Koshlyak, the ideological inspirer of Denisenko, and in the spring-summer of 2014 he was a well-armed pocket army of “Privat”. Officially created to protect Ukraine, it, like a number of other volunteer battalions, performed a dual function: while some of its fighters fought in the ATO, others were engaged in raiding, racketeering and other illegal activities. It was the perfect cover! Employees of the Leon private security company, hiding their faces under balaclavas and waving black and red flags, began seizing enterprises, including the Odessa Oil Refinery and Dolinsky Gas Processing Plant, as well as the Amstor supermarket chain.

The bloody apotheosis of this orgy was the murder of Ukrainian officer Viktor Mandzik at a post near Volnovakha, who was trying to interfere with the work of an established smuggling channel controlled by the “patriots” of Denisenko and the “Koshlyakovites.” It was quite resonant, and relations between the “privatists” and President Poroshenko’s team sharply worsened. In Kyiv they took advantage of the opportunity, and in November 2015 Korban and Koshlyak were arrested.

Moreover, the head of the SBU Vasily Gritsak specifically clarified what exactly Koshlyak is accused of: “The murder was committed by Denis Gordeev, who is now under investigation, and Artem Martynenko, who is also involved. They are members of a security company that is affiliated, let’s say, with citizen Koshlyak“

Of course, Koshlyak did not sit down – who will plant these Dnepropetrovsk “monuments!” And when Korban was subsequently released, when almost all of Captain Mandzik’s murderers were acquitted and released, Koshlyak emphasized in every possible way that he was just involved in the collapsed “Korban case,” keeping silent that at the heart of this case was the cynical murder of a Ukrainian officer.

Since 2016, things have improved somewhat for the “Privatovites,” which may have been facilitated by the distancing of the Korban-Filatov group from Kolomoisky. Evidence of this was the unprecedented scale of “cutting” of budget funds by the Dnepropetrovsk City Council (the cost of tenders, according to Skelet.Info overestimated by 30-50%), the “tomos union” of Nalekreshvili and Poroshenko, as well as Koshlyak’s continued impunity. Which, among other things, also began to “protect” cemetery mafiatrading through the “City Ritual Service” in places in city cemeteries.

Arrested in September 2022, the leaders of this enterprise were released in November – as was Sergei Samoilenko (nicknamed Catfish), president of the Leon sports club and Koshlyak’s right hand. There have been very bad rumors about this man for a long time: that he, together with the heads of the regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shchadilo, oversees the drug business, that he, together with Sergei Filippenko (another “Koshlyak’s hand”, heads the titushka athletes) was involved in the murder of businessman Armen Bogdasaryan. But he was in the cell in connection with the case of the raider takeover of the Agro-komplekt enterprise, and not for long – only two days!

Astions: raiding as a business

If you follow the saying about the apple and the apple tree, then one can only guess about the methods by which the son of General Astion and the son-in-law of the “authority” Koshlyak increased his capital! Well, we will complement this picture with several scandalous facts from the stormy business activities of Vasily Astion and his younger brother Evgeniy, which is simply replete with raider scandals.

First, let’s take a quick look at their businesses. The oldest of them is Vostok-Agro LLC (USREOU 30506220), created back in 1999. Today, through the Cypriot company Dnipro Agro Alliance Ltd, it is jointly owned by Vasily Astion, his brother Evgeniy and Mikhail Koshlyak. In the same way, through this company, this trinity is the beneficiaries: Pobeda LLC (30927164), DneprAgroProduct (39942238), Fisakovsky Elevator (34513027), Sinelnikovo-Agro (31802641), Lozovatka-Agro (44186712), “Straw” (36933660), PJSC “Bozhedarovsky Elevator” (00953869).

Together, the Astion brothers are the owners of: Almatea LLC (00953869), Rucheek (25724667), Vozrozhdenie (30699186), Bioart (33855648), Inter Way Capital (40890026), TranslogisticGroup (41893536) , “SPK Invest 2021” (44095332), “Dnepr Anro Land” (44254656), Khorol Baby Food Plant (25157429), Closed non-diversified venture fund “Genesis Capital” (43331193) and the financial company “FinGroup Factor” (38945479).’

In addition, Vasily Astion is a co-owner of the construction companies AT Building and AT Realty, Dneprovsky Granite LLC, and a pleasure boat factory with the pompous name Ocean-Ship Repair (37698435). Also, through some of the listed enterprises, Astions control several agricultural firms.

Some of the partnerships between the Astions and Koshlyak are quite interesting! Thus, their partner in private security company Leon, Dnipro Agro Alliance Ltd and Soloma LLC (despite the ironic name, the company deals with a wide range of products from petroleum products to animal fats) and a couple of other enterprises is Elena Semenchenko. This scandalous and greedy woman is the wife of Roman Semenchenko, the former head of department “K” of the USBU of the Dnepropetrovsk region. Since October 2019, he worked as President Zelensky’s plenipotentiary for monitoring the activities of the SBU, and since October 2022, he received the position of head of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood of the SBU.

The Semenchenko Family has long been under the radar of journalists, who found out that she really loves spacious real estate, expensive cars and noisy parties in restaurants. It is clear that with such connections, Koshlyak and Astions will not face any prison! But as for previous connections, it is worth remembering that in the Rada of the 6th (2007-2012) and 8th (2012-2014) convocations Vasily Astion was an assistant to People’s Deputy Vitaly Khomutynnik.

In general, we can say that if in the “zero” Nikolai Astion invested money in construction (in Crimea, as well as in Sumy and Kherson, where he worked), then after resigning, he, his sons and brother-in-law Koshlyak began to actively develop the agricultural business – turned out to be the most promising in modern Ukraine. To date, the Astion-Koshlyakov family clan has accumulated a land bank of about 50 thousand hectares! How? Yes, simply by “squeezing” land from other enterprises, capturing and absorbing them!

The most notable story was the raider takeover of the Pectoral private enterprise (former collective farm named after Karl Marx), which began in 2012 with the arrest of its creator and leader Oleg Sevidov. He was “tied up” not by the criminal investigation department, but by the tax police, for “arrears,” sending him to a pre-trial detention center for two months. How can one not remember that Nikolai Astion previously worked for several years as the head of the tax police – albeit in a different area, but still! Because while Sevidov was “warming the bunks,” he received persistent proposals from the Astion family to transfer their agribusiness to them. The fact of which was subsequently documented in the open against Vasily Astion criminal case. The charges were very serious: extortion (Article 189-2 of the Criminal Code, from 3 to 7 years) and unlawful taking of enterprise property (206-2 of the Criminal Code, from 5 to 10 years). But the case, the consideration of which began in the Zhovtnevy District Court of Dnepropetrovsk, hung there for almost three years and was successfully collapsed! And while it was being destroyed, the Astions were stealing the property of Pectoral and transferring the leased land shares to their other companies.

And the criminal case into the raider seizure of the Khorol baby food factory, opened back in 2015, was completely forgotten! There, Vasily Astion and Koshlyak used the following scheme: first, they offered the plant their protection from raiders who had been harassing the enterprise since 2005. Those, not understanding who to contact, trusted them. As a result, Vasily Astion organized a meeting of the company’s supervisory board, which decided to sell all the property to a new company owned by the brothers.

Or here’s another story about the seizure of the Agrosvit enterprise. In the summer of 2019, right before the harvest, new managers appeared at it, declaring that the former director Yuri Golovin “drove the enterprise into a hole of debt.” In fact, the following happened: like many enterprises, Agrosvit periodically took out loans, but suddenly its debts were purchased by the Astion brothers’ FinGroup Factor. Then FinGroup Factor immediately raised interest on these debts and filed a lawsuit demanding their immediate compensation – on the basis of which they brought in their management to the enterprise.

And then the robbery typical of Astionov-Koshlyak began: the arriving “titushki” intimidated and dispersed the villagers, beginning to collect and export crops from the fields. Contacting the law enforcement agencies did not yield anything; on the contrary, the complainants were beaten. In the next two years, the Astions used 3,500 hectares of Agrosvita land practically free of charge, without paying the villagers payment for shares.

And in October 2019, Astin swung, no more, no less, at Ukrgazvydobuvannya – the leading gas production enterprise in Ukraine!

The same financial company “FinGroup Factor” bought 150 million of Ukrgasvydobuvannya’s debt from Delta Bank for only 75 million hryvnia, which together with interest amounted to 215 million. Did they want to take over this enterprise? Perhaps because this happened exactly after the change of power in the country, when the liberal-market government of Goncharuk’s “Soros” came into operation, declaring its intentions to privatize all state-owned enterprises. And FinGroup Factor, having a substantial debt from Ukrgasvydobuvannya, would have an advantage in this case.

These examples of rabid and unpunished raiding by the Astion-Koshlyak family clan raise many indignant questions. And not just the classic “how long?!”, which, it seems, there is simply no one to ask. After all, neither the Maidan of 2014 nor the elections of 2019 in any way shook the corruption in Dnepropetrovsk, and the Astion family with each change of power in the country only reached a higher level of raiding. Meanwhile, in any European country, law enforcement agencies would probably pay attention to the family business of the children of the general and the “authority”, most of whose enterprises were not created or bought by them, but “squeezed out”!

Mikhail Shpolyansky, Skelet.Info

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