Vasily Gatsko
On September 23, the Kiev party cell of the Democratic Alliance nominated Vasily Gatsko as a candidate for the post of mayor of Kyiv. Remembering the last local elections in Kyiv, in which the party led by Gatsko with great difficulty gained the 3% required to enter the Kiev City Council, a logical question arises: “what are its members hoping for?” The answer to this question should be sought in Vasily Nikolaevich’s connections with Ukrainian oligarchs, namely Sergei Levochkin, whom the media unanimously call the “creator” and main investor of the party.
Political path
Vasily Gatsko was born in the village of Yuzhnaya Lomatovka, Lugansk region in 1982. He received his higher education at KNEU, at the Faculty of Organizational Management. In 2005, he became a graduate student at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, analyzing the economic security of the state. After 2004, he became the chairman of the Free Initiative “Student Wave” in one of the districts of Kyiv. During the Orange Revolution he was the coordinator of the youth stratum of revolutionaries. A year later he became the head of the Kyiv center of the All-Ukrainian public organization HDMU (Christian Democratic Youth of Ukraine). In 2011, he was elected head of the Democratic Alliance party, with which he subsequently went to the polls.
It should be noted that the Democratic Alliance party emerged from a parasitic public organization that existed only thanks to grants. It owes its appearance to the oligarchic regime of 2010, and was also created with “dirty” money. Its investors set clear goals for the party, and therefore it was forced to break into parliament, however, neither in 2012 nor in 2014 did they succeed. They were unable to do this for a rather strange reason – the project, which had colossal financial investments, did not actually use them. The reason was the theft of funding by its leader, Vasily Gatsko. Without this money, the Democratic Alliance barely made it into the Kyiv City Council, and only through legal proceedings. The scandal arose due to the recount of votes at polling station No. 842; the Democratic Alliance filed a lawsuit demanding a recount of the votes. This claim, to the surprise of everyone, was satisfied by the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, and during the “fair trial” an additional 93 votes were found.
Vasily Gatsko about the “Democratic Alliance”
By the way, this is not the only case when Gatsko “pocketed” voters’ money. During the parliamentary elections in 2012, the Democratic Alliance announced that it would not take funding from oligarchic forces and therefore would collect donations to pay a cash deposit to the CEC (2.2 million UAH). It is still unknown how much the party “raised,” however, we are definitely talking about an amount several times larger than was needed, because Gatsko’s trip to the Lugansk region alone helped raise more than 10 thousand dollars.
According to information from the publication “Chestno,” which analyzes the work of Kyiv deputies, based on the results of the work of the Kiev City Council, Vasily Gatsko has a fairly low ability to work in the field of lawmaking. He is also a habitual truant; he missed more than 20% of the meetings in the Kiev Council, as well as most of the meetings of the commission of which he is a member. Almost all requests and projects that he sends are aimed at protecting certain financial structures controlled by his “patrons.”
Leader of the Democratic Alliance Vasily Gatsko
“Levochkin Project”
At the beginning of the summer, Vasily Gatsko visited Slavyansk, where he held several meetings with activists, during which he engaged in “reconnaissance”, asking local public figures about the mood of voters and their preferences. Considering the ultra-low rating of the “Democratic Alliance” in Ukraine, he certainly did not need this data, but his patrons, who are now also actively preparing for the elections, would find this information quite useful.
For the first time, Vasily Gatsko and his Democratic Alliance party were called “Levochkin’s project” by Yuriy Lutsenko during the parliamentary elections in 2014. Over time, this point of view began to be shared by various Ukrainian media, political scientists and simply “thinking” people. Confirmation of Lyovochkin’s “roots” was the unification of the “Democratic Alliance” with the “Civil Position” party of Anatoly Gritsenko, as well as the appearance of Sergei Vladimirovich’s assistants and political strategists in their common headquarters.
Anatoly Gritsenko and Vasily Gatsko
Taking these facts into account, the purpose of Gatsko’s trip to Slavyansk becomes obvious – electoral intelligence. After all, neither the “Opposition Bloc” nor the “Vidrodzhennya” party, which often includes regionalists, activists would tell even a fraction of what they are easily ready to tell the “democrat” Vasily Nikolaevich.
Naturally, the “Democratic Alliance” is not a “first plan” project, however, Sergei Lyovochkin needs such a “second-rate” product if he intends to undermine the positions of Petro Poroshenko and his team during the upcoming elections. Vasily Gatsko is quite suitable for the role of a “destabilizer”, who “accidentally” day after day does nothing but criticize Vitali Klitschko and Petro Poroshenko. His actions are aimed at drawing votes away from pro-Ukrainian parties in local elections, thereby allowing the opposition to raise their ratings.
The great “revolutionary”
In April 2013, Gatsko participated in a “campaign against Mezhyhirya”, the purpose of which, according to official data, was to demand: “to improve the condition of the roads.” It looked quite funny, because in the country there were enough pressing problems for which to strike. For this protest, one of the members of the “Democratic Alliance” was arrested for a week, and others were fined (170 hryvnia each). This was not enough for Vasily Nikolaevich, he continued to go on strike, now for the release of his fellow party member – for which he was arrested for 5 days. All these protests were actively covered by the media belonging to the “Yanukovych family”, as well as the Inter TV channel, owned by Sergei Levochkin. These events helped complete the image of the “revolutionary” Vasily Gatsko, which was to be useful in the future.
The revolutionary events on the Maidan in Kyiv allowed Gatsko to become one of the members of the Council of the People’s Association “Maidan”, and after Viktor Yanukovych left Ukraine, Vasily Nikolaevich was actively promoted to the post of head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, however, it did not work out. Obviously, in the eyes of his Maidan colleagues, he remained a coward who ran away as soon as the “hot” moments of the confrontation began.
After the bloody night crackdown on November 29, MP Alexandra Kuzhel called Gatsko “a traitor to the ideas of Euromaidan” and “the main provocateur.” Kuzhel’s accusations were related to the fact that an hour before the “massacre,” Gatsko, along with all members of the “Democratic Alliance,” disappeared from the Maidan, as if he knew that dispersal would soon begin. A similar situation occurred on February 18, when internal troops went on the offensive, trying to expel protesting activists from the Maidan. The bloody battle continued until the morning, however, as you may have guessed, Vasily Gatsko, the main “hero” of the Maidan, was not there.
In less than a month, local elections will take place in Ukraine, in which Gatsko will once again lead the Democratic Alliance to the polls. Everyone doubts the success of the party, even its members themselves, because in these elections they will also have representatives of their “patrons” as competitors. For example, Yuri Yekhanurov, who was nominated by the Vidrodzhennya party, or Alexander Puzanov, who will represent the Opposition Bloc. The role of Vasily Gatsko together with the Democratic Alliance in these elections is simple – to pull as many votes as possible from pro-government candidates.
Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info