Vasily Pisnoy
In the lists of high-ranking Ukrainian corrupt officials, Lieutenant General Vasily Pisny should be given an honorable place in the top hundred. He really deserved it, because for almost thirty years he was exclusively engaged in filling his pockets in all available ways. His track record includes racketeering, smuggling, bribes and extortions, corruption, malfeasance. Pisnoy could be an excellent candidate for a show trial, but we must remember that now it is extremely important for him to escape the impending responsibility, preferably by becoming a candidate for people’s deputies.
For a long time, Vasily Pisnoy was known only in Western Ukraine, where he grew up and worked for many years – earning himself the criminal nickname “Antibiotic”, a reputation as an exemplary corrupt official and an impressive capital. But on November 19, 2015, Pisnoy “became famous” throughout Ukraine, becoming a “victim” of the scandalous activist and people’s deputy Vladimir Parasyuk. During a meeting of the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, where the deputy head of the SBU Directorate, General Pisnoy, was invited, these two “heroes of Maidan” argued over which of them had done more for the revolution. The enraged Parasyuk quickly ran up to Pisny and kicked him in the head. After the fight, he gave an interview to reporters, saying that he did not regret what he had done.
Most Ukrainians then did not understand what was going on, why the hooligan Parasyuk (such is his reputation) started a fight within the walls of parliament, and why he kicked the SBU general himself! But residents of the Lviv and Ternopil regions, who well remembered Pisny-Antibiotic, openly gloated that a blow to corruption was dealt at least with the help of Parasyuk’s shoe. And now you will also understand why…
Werewolves in uniform
Pisnoy Vasily Mikhailovich was born on January 2, 1963 in the village of Lopushany, Zborovsky district, Ternopil region. Although this village is old, almost ancient (founded in 1541), it is very sparsely populated: according to the 2001 census, only 180 people lived in it, now even fewer.
In the media, the general’s surname is “declined” both as “Pisnoy” and “Pisny”. Which is correct? In the original, in Ukrainian, his surname is “Pisny”. In Russian, according to the rules of transcription, it is “Pisnoy”. However, in recent years, a fashion has appeared in Ukraine to “Ukrainize” the Russian-language transcription of surnames, and the literacy of officials and journalists has dropped noticeably – therefore, quite often his surname is written in Russian the way they hear it in Ukrainian, that is, “Pisny”. We will adhere to the old rules of language from the times of literary classics.
Since childhood, Vasily Pisnoy was distinguished by his reluctance to work with his hands, but by his desire for great wealth. His dream was some kind of leadership position on a state farm, but he was also not particularly keen on learning. So, dreaming of a rich life, he waited for a summons from the military registration and enlistment office and in 1981-83. conscientiously gave his military duty to his homeland. He returned home, had his demobilization, and then it was almost like in the movie “Brother”: the mother took her youngest son to the city, to the eldest, Bogdan Pisny, who worked in the police and by Lopushan’s standards was a big man. “Look, he’ll find a place for you, you fool.”
The brother settled his brother: he helped him get a job in the police, took him under his wing, and a year later Vasily Pisnoy even entered the Lvov Agricultural Institute (now the National Agrarian University) in absentia, to become a mechanical engineer. However, in 1989, when Pisnoy received his long-awaited diploma, the situation in the country as a whole and his life in particular changed greatly. The position of chief mechanic of a state farm no longer seemed as promising as the path of a cooperator. In addition, Pisnoy realized that even a simple traffic cop can “earn” a good living for himself, and if you combine service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs with entrepreneurship, then you generally get “fat in butter.” Therefore, the newly-minted lieutenant founded several enterprises with his brother, colleagues and acquaintances, and a year later (in 1990) he entered the law faculty of Lvov State University named after Franko – to become a captain, and maybe a major. And he was right.
The main business of Vasily Pisny in the first half of the 90s, according to Skelet.Infothere was petty smuggling. Using their police shoulder straps and connections at customs, Pisnoy and his companions exported something to Poland and imported something into Ukraine. In particular, one of the points of their “export” were cigarettes and alcohol, which were transported across the border in canisters hidden under the seats of the 123 Mercedes (owned by Maria Kurgan), through the customs crossings Rawa-Ruska and Shegini, to the Polish city of Tomaszow. There, the alcohol was transferred for sale to Polish citizens Bogdan Falger and Marjan Gonsior.
It was on alcohol that Vasily Mikhailovich “got burned” and found himself behind bars – he spent 5 months in a pre-trial detention center and almost lost his shoulder straps. And the following happened: one day, while calculating their accounts, the partners quarreled, and Pisnoy demanded a debt of 5 thousand dollars from Maria Bereza (wife of Maryan Gonsior). Then Pisnoy decided to show himself as a “cool kid” and put Bereza on the “counter”, and already demanded six, and then seven thousand dollars. The matter was not limited to demands alone: by force he took his companion to his mansion under construction in Bryuzovichi, where he kept him in the basement until Bereza agreed to pay him at least part of the required amount. Confident of his own impunity (he is a policeman!), Pisnoy let her go – and Bereza immediately contacted the Internal Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A whole special operation was carried out, during which Bereza gave Pisny a pack of dollars marked with a special isotope. On July 10, 1995, the proud policeman-extortionist was detained and sent to a pre-trial detention center, where Vasily Pisnoy spent five months. He was charged with Article 144-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (racketeering), next in line were charges of abuse of office and smuggling, as well as illegal transactions with currency (the article was in force until 1996).
His brother, Bogdan Pisnoy, who at that time held the position of head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Zhidachiv district and is a deputy of the Lviv regional council, came to his rescue. He raised all his connections in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor’s office in order to not only drop all charges against Vasily Pisny, but also completely turn the case around. Maria Bereza was accused of not wanting to return the borrowed money to Vasily Pisny’s wife and “arranging a dirty provocation.” And the Internal Security Service is that it slipped Pisny “radioactive banknotes,” which is why he, according to his brother, “carried a mini-nuclear reactor in his pocket for six hours” (in fact, special low-energy isotopes were used to mark banknotes radiation that does not “pierce” even the fabric of panties). As a result, the case was closed, Vasily Pisnoy was released and reinstated at work (he was also paid for five months of salary), employees of the Internal Security Service were forced to apologize to him, and Bogdan Pisnoy also published a letter in the newspaper “Vysoky Zamok” under the loud title “Provocation” .
It would seem that Vasily Mikhailovich was completely “screwed off”. However, a month later, on April 23, 1996, the High Castle published an article by the deputy head of the Internal Security Service of the Lviv Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, S. Dilny, under the heading “Werewolves in uniform,” in which he outlined Pisny’s case in detail. And at the same time he attached a photocopy of the accounting records seized from Vasily Pisny, where he wrote down in his own hand who owed him, how much and for what. For this publication, the “High Castle” team was subjected to pressure from the Pisny brothers for a long time.
Having “returned” from the pre-trial detention center and having learned a valuable lesson, Vasily Pisnoy decided to “give up” with petty smuggling and petty racketeering – and got involved in larger-scale and safer matters for himself. As the commander of a traffic police detachment, he began to “protect” other smugglers, including those transporting drugs. Pisnoy could be guaranteed to escort those who paid him from the border to the regional center. But he conscientiously detained those who refused as drug dealers. True, there were often nuances, such as the story of the amphetamine shipment, which was reported in the media at one time.
This is what happened: Pisnoy and his colleagues detained a car with a large shipment of ecstasy (worth hundreds of thousands of dollars), and, contrary to instructions, even before the arrival of OBNON workers, they drove it to their garage – supposedly to ensure the protection of the seized cargo. But when the investigative team arrived, only a few packages remained of the large cargo of amphetamine, which were recorded. It’s not hard to guess where the rest of the drugs went – they were given to drug dealers who collaborated with Pisny for sale. They say that it was precisely because of this story, as well as due to the popularity of the series “Gangster Petersburg” released in 2000, that Vasily Pisnoy then received the nickname “Antibiotic” from his colleagues and “wards”, which soon thundered throughout the region.
What can you get from the Maidan?
When Vladimir Parasyuk gave an interview to journalists after a clash with Pisny, he stated that the odious general had long been “protected” by Yuriy Lutsenko and Stepan Kubiv. Parasyuk did not say how long ago, however, according to information from other sources Skelet.Infothe close relationship between Stepan Kubiv and the Pisny brothers began even before the first Maidan. First, Kubiv became friends with Bogdan Pisny (he was a deputy of the Lviv regional council), and through him with Vasily. Let us recall that Stepan Kubiv was at the origins of the creation of “Our Ukraine”, and also played an important role with his “Credit Bank” in financing Yushchenko’s election campaign and the upcoming “Orange Revolution” with Western money.
The Pisny brothers also made their contribution to this historical event: at least Vasily Pisny participated in the transportation of participants of the “Orange Revolution” from Lvov to Kyiv. Moreover, if ordinary activists got to the capital on their own, as best they could, they brought up the “party guard” in an organized manner, as well as brigades of criminal authorities Vladimir Didukh (Vova Morda) and Igor Krivetsky (Pupsa), whose “titushki” protected the Maidan from a possible raid “ titushek” Yanukovych. Pisnoy, who then headed the traffic police in the Ternopil region, came up with a scheme for “passenger transit” by motor transport under the cover of Lviv and Ternopil traffic cops – he later used it during the events of 2013-2014.
For his ingenuity and invaluable help, Vasily Pisny was noted by the leaders of Maidan 2004 and personally by its commandant Yuriy Lutsenko, who became his “sidekick”. Already in November 2004, in the atmosphere of revolutionary euphoria that reigned in Ternopil, Pisnoy got himself the position of head of the Organized Crime Control Department – and in a few months he successfully ruined many cases against organized crime groups and “authorities”, filling his pockets with “payoffs”.
In February 2005, Yuriy Lutsenko became the new Minister of Internal Affairs, declaring the need to arrest “those people who have long been known as corrupt officials in the Ministry of Internal Affairs system.” But instead of arrests, he himself immediately became involved in corruption. A month later, in March 2005, Lutsenko appointed the hardened “werewolf in uniform” Vasily Pisny as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ternopil region. Sources Skelet.Info the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that Pisny “brought” Lutsenko 230 thousand dollars for this. How much more he added for his promotion in rank is unknown, however, during 2005, Major Pisnoy suddenly rose to major general. However, he was not alone, and everyone remembers how under Yushchenko there was a rapid increase in the ranks of security officials close to power: for example, Valery Geletey rose from colonel to colonel general in a year and a half.
During the “revenge of the regionals” in 2006-2007. Vasily Pisny was appointed head of the Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the State Tax Administration of the Western Region. Little is known about his activities in this post, but sources Skelet.Info They told one small but interesting detail: Stepan Kubiv allegedly lobbied for Pisny’s appointment. And Kubiv, who after the first Maidan actively placed his people in the tax authorities of the Lviv region, had his own vested interests in this. Including – covering up the traces of criminal cases initiated in 2001-2003. when the Lviv State Tax Administration was headed by Sergei Medvedchuk, the brother of Viktor Medvedchuk. And Pisnoy, at the head of the Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases, certainly provided Kubiv with this important service.
However, Pisnoy provided even more invaluable assistance in this post to his matchmaker Stepan Vorozhbit, who worked in the service for combating smuggling and violations of customs rules in the Lviv region. He worked in such a way that he himself became the author of a smuggling scheme, according to which, at the Rava-Russkaya post, nothing was paid to the state’s treasury for transported goods, causing it damage in the amount of about a million hryvnia (200 thousand dollars at the then exchange rate). But one day Vorozhbit got burned by this – and his matchmaker Pisnoy saved him, who took this matter “under control” – and then, apparently, laughingly threw him into the fire during a family picnic. By the way, Stepan Vorozhbit successfully continued working at customs even after the scandal of 2016, when he was fired by order of Prime Minister Groysman, since the appetites and impudence of the corrupt official exceeded more and more reasonable limits. The dismissed Vorozhbit simply moved to work at another customs post!
But let’s go back to 2007. With the return of Yuriy Lutsenko to the chair of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Vasily Pisnoy immediately approached him – and already in December he received the appointment for the post of head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Lviv region. It was more “fat” than the post of chief of the Ternopil police, as it gave access to the western border with Poland and ample opportunities for smuggling – the favorite “business” of the Pisny family. That’s why it cost Vasily Mikhailovich much more: according to media reports, he paid $3 million for it.
And he immediately began to “recoup” this amount, extorting offerings from his subordinates. And then, already in February 2008, in the media (in particular, in the Lvovskaya Gazeta) An anonymous appeal appeared from allegedly employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Lvov region to President Yushchenko, which contained information compromising the new chief. In addition to the complaint about extortions (up to 100 thousand dollars for maintaining the position), it told about Pisny’s criminal past (in particular, about the “alcohol case”). They also reported that the contract killing of criminal businessman Borys (previously convicted member of the Lviv organized crime group Pampukha) that took place on February 3, 2008 in the center of Lvov, right near the Cathedral of St. George, was connected with the brother of the police chief. Allegedly, he began to interfere with the smuggling business of Bogdan Pisny – for which he was immediately “removed”, framing the murder as a “criminal showdown”. Immediately after this publication, Vasily Pisnoy showed nervousness and very quickly announced that the case had been solved: the murderer was declared to be a repeat offender who had recently been released from prison, who had robbed a slot machine hall with his accomplices a few days earlier. The version of the murder was immediately revised, and instead of “criminal showdowns,” it turned into a banal “attempt to steal or rob a car,” during which the robbers allegedly shot the owner of the car, Borys. The “disclosure” of the case reeked of outright fraud, even Pisnoy himself admitted that the killers were found “by accident” (but quickly), and the residents of Lviv, commenting on this news, simply laughed unkindly. It is interesting that immediately after the successful “disclosure”, the case was immediately forgotten (and information about it was wiped off the Internet), and the fate of the accused remained unknown. In general, this is how Vasily Pisnoy began to earn himself an extremely negative reputation in Lviv as a corrupt lawless official, and the nickname “Antibiotic” now thundered throughout the entire region.
In May 2008, a new letter from unnamed employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs appeared in the media, in which new facts were cited: from threats to Lvovskaya Gazeta journalists to a listing of the “prices” established by Pisny. In particular, the heads of the MREO “paid” Pisny from 30 to 60 thousand dollars, and the cost of the position of an ordinary MREO inspector was 10-15 thousand.
But Yuriy Lutsenko did not care about this, nor did Stepan Kubiv – with whom the Pisny brothers were now family friends. It was Lutsenko who gave Vasily Pisny a gift for Independence Day 2008, including him in the general’s list for promotion, along with such “legends of Lutsenko corruption” as Vladimir Bedrikovsky, Vasily TopchyAnatoly Danilenko. AND by Yushchenko’s decree No. 753\2008 Vasily Pisny was awarded the rank of police lieutenant general.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Pisnoy Vasily: the career of the Lvov “Antibiotic”, or why the smuggler general was beaten. PART 2
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