Victor Baloha. The phenomenon of the Transcarpathian god

Three times People’s Deputy, Mayor of Mukachevo, Head of the Administration of President Yushchenko, twice Minister of Emergency Situations. This is an incomplete list of positions held by Viktor Ivanovich Baloga. However, Ukrainians associate his name more with the words “Transcarpathia”, “Barva”, “smuggling” and “racketeering”. Baloga managed to bring the whole family into big politics and create a Clan, practically usurping power in Ukraine. What is the phenomenon of political genius?

Victor Baloga, Gesha and the Barva company

Baloga Viktor Ivanovich born in the village of Zavidovo, Mukachevo district, Transcarpathian region. In 1984 he graduated from the Lviv Trade and Economic Institute with a degree in commodity science.

Victor Baloga in the army

After serving in the army, he returns to his native land and gets a job as a merchandiser. Such a gray Soviet biography, which does not foretell career ups. However, the most interesting thing in the life of Viktor Ivanovich will begin in 1992. In the meantime, he becomes a senior merchandiser in the consumer cooperation system in the city of Mukachevo, and then – deputy head of the Kosinsky SPO Beregovsky district consumer society. Having reached this destination, Baloga understands that it’s time to change his life.

So, 1992. These are the “glorious” achievements of the collapse of the USSR – shortages, criminal showdowns, redistribution of power. Baloga successfully fits into them and heads Rey-promin LLC. This is a small company that is supposedly engaged in trade. However, it should be taken into account that this is Transcarpathia and the dashing 90s.

In fact, “Rey-promin” was the company through which the well-known criminal authority in Transcarpathia, Mikhail Tokar, laundered his millions. People knew him under the nickname Gesha. After the collapse of the Union, he controlled the entire flow of smuggled goods in Western Ukraine: from food to cars. Gesha, like all people from the 90s, was used to doing business with the help of banal “bulls” and automatic machines. However, at some point he got his bearings and realized that he needed to legalize his business. He began to involve young and promising businessmen in the process in order to sell contraband products within the law. Victor Baloga met all the criteria and ended up under Gesha’s wing. “Rey-promin” existed for 5 years.

Already in 1998, Barva LLC was created. At first glance, nothing special. True, it was striking that the number of founders, in addition to Viktor Baloga, included his brothers Ivan and Pavel, cousin Vasily Petevka, wife Oksana Anatolyevna, as well as Ilya Tokar, Gesha’s brother. Mikhail Tokar himself, apparently, was afraid to reveal his financial participation in the creation of the company. What was she doing? It’s easier to say what she didn’t do. In short, the entire business of Transcarpathia fell under Barva and Baloga: markets for oil products, food (liquor trade and cigarettes), forests, medicines and agricultural products.

At this time, the 600th Mercedes begins to drive around the Transcarpathian region. The phenomenon is akin to the server glow in Africa. So, Viktor Baloga was driving the iron horse. The Transcarpathian criminal rampant gained momentum and became known outside the country. European law enforcement officers believed that the two largest criminal and smuggling points in the CIS were concentrated in Ukraine – in Kyiv and Mukachevo. The third point was Moscow.

Where to go next if you control all smuggling in the region? Of course, into politics, which will open all horizons. In 1998, Tokar and Baloga rushed to the big political arena. Participation in the elections ends with Viktor Ivanovich sitting in the chair of the mayor of Mukachevo, and Tokar going to the regional council. Regardless of their positions, the relationship between Baloga and Tokar was built on the master-servant principle, where the master was the bandit and the servant was the mayor. Rumor has it that the crime boss often trained a young protégé using the old method – a slap on the head. By the way, another protégé of the criminal authority entered politics a little earlier – Sergei Ratushnyak, mayor of Uzhgorod (1994-1998 and 2006-2010).

According to rumors, Baloga and Ratushnyak are related to the execution of Gesha in the same 1998. Allegedly, the “partners” had different views on doing business, and they solved the problem by eliminating their leader. By the way, after this incident their paths will diverge, they will become representatives of warring clans in Transcarpathia. The first conflict will be associated with the confrontation between Ratushnyak-mayor and the SDPU(o) party, which Baloga actively supported. Because of this, Viktor Ivanovich will field an opponent from Ukraine. Returning from exile, Ratushnyak crossed the path of his competitor, preventing him from re-taking the post of chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration in 2004, and in 2006 he again sat in the chair of the mayor of Uzhgorod, intended for Baloga’s protégé.

However, let’s return to the Geshi Empire. It did not collapse after his death, but passed into the hands of Baloga and Ilya Tokar.

By the way, the latter is still part of the politician’s inner circle and even applied for the post of head of the Transcarpathian Regional Council, but did not succeed.

Interesting fact: Vakhtang Ubiria (in the criminal world “Vakha”), a close friend and partner of Semyon Mogilevich, the No. 1 crime boss in the world, was present at Gesha’s funeral. Officially, Vakha was the deputy head of the Ukrzaliznytsia transport service center. According to rumors, Mogilevich himself could not come to the funeral, but sent Vakha. This suggests that Gesha and the odious crime boss were friends and partners, including in the Barva company, which means that Viktor Baloga is also related to this person.

Victor Baloga and Medvedchuk

It was not only criminal connections that helped Balogh enter the big political arena. One of the main roles was played by meeting Viktor Medvedchuk and joining the SDPU(o).

This happened in 1997. Two Kyiv businessmen Viktor Medvedchuk and Grigory Surkis were looking for the district Social Democratic Party to enter the Verkhovna Rada. Since no one knew the game, it was necessary to play it safe and ensure passage through the majority round. The choice fell on Transcarpathia, which was not very highly rated in the capital. Businessmen took a risk. They arrived in Mukachevo, where Baloga met them in a 600 Mercedes, offering help and even a driver. So Transcarpathia became the “patrimony of the Social Democrats,” because Viktor Ivanovich launched an active campaign campaign. With his influence it looked more like coercion, but no matter. The main thing is that thanks to this region, the SDPU (u) squeezed into parliament, gaining 4.01%.

Why did Balogh need this, who already had God, in the sense of the criminal authority Gesha, in his bosom? Of course, he looked to the future: you never know how the “owner” would behave, but Viktor Ivanovich had a “second roof” in the person of Kyiv businessmen. And, it is worth noting, they could compete with Transcarpathian criminals.

So Baloga receives the mayor’s seat, and a year later, in 1999, the governor’s seat. As the head of the regional state administration, Viktor Ivanovich fully thanked the then President Leonid Kuchma. In 1999, during the presidential elections, Transcarpathia expressed phenomenal support for Leonid Danilovich. The President is also not in debt. He initiates payment of arrears of wages, pensions, and social assistance to public sector employees through the Barva company. It begins to supply food packages at inflated prices, vouchers to semi-abandoned sanatoriums for the winter seasons and other “benefits”. The principle “Take, God, what is not good for us” worked. In fact, we have – Danylych pays off debts to suffering Transcarpathians, and Baloga puts money into his accounts. True, as it turned out later, there was money in the local treasury. Kyiv transferred them on the eve of the elections. Only now they did not go to the residents, but ended up in the accounts of the “Balogovsky” LLC.

Mikhail Syatynia, a member of the People’s Party faction, spoke about this scheme in 2005. But the prosecutor’s office was not interested in the story, because the statute of limitations had already passed, and the “love friends” who came to power were minding their own business.

The connection with the SDPU(o) and Medvedchuk was severed in 2001 after Victor Baloga’s conflict with Ivan Rizak, an influential member of the party.

Later, former party members will exchange unpleasant statements about each other. For example, Viktor Medvedchuk will say: “God forbid that such a wretched person as Baloga should comment on my actions or ideas. Baloga is a unique phenomenon, a thousand forms, which perfectly characterizes the revelation of his former patron and accomplice Yushchenko, which once resulted in the phrase: “Baloga is me.”.

Victor Baloha. Tandem with Yushchenko

In April 2002, the non-partisan Baloga became a people’s deputy of Ukraine. Our Ukraine joins the opposition faction in parliament. For three years he has served on the Committee on Economic Policy, Property and Investment. After Viktor Yushchenko’s victory in the presidential elections in February 2005, he again returned to Transcarpathia as governor, but this time as an “orange” governor. Six months later, Viktor Ivanovich moves to Kyiv to change his gubernatorial chair to a comfortable ministerial one. He heads the Ministry of Emergency Situations and Protection of the Population from the Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster in the government of Yuri Yekhanurov. A year later, he was reappointed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine again as head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but already in the government of Viktor Yanukovych. And a little over a month later, Yushchenko appoints Baloga to the post of head of the Presidential Secretariat. This happens during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Viktor Andreevich’s brother, Peter. For what merits did Viktor Ivanovich receive this warm place?

Two Victors – Yushchenko and Baloga

Viktor Baloga met Yushchenko when Viktor Andreevich was head of the National Bank. Valery Pustovoitenko introduced them to each other. By the way, they say that Viktor Ivanovich left the ranks of the SDPU(o) and Medvedchuk because of the beginning of his friendship with Yushchenko. The peak of friendship between politicians occurred in 1999-2001, when Baloga served as governor of the Transcarpathian region, and Yushchenko was prime minister. Viktor Andreevich loved to take a break from government affairs in Western Ukraine, or rather in the Morozovsky forestry of the Mukachevo State Forestry, which is part of the recreation area of ​​the Sinyak sanatorium. Baloga spared nothing for his dear guest. For example, Yushchenko was helped to brighten up his leisure time by a young girl whom the governor of Transcarpathia chose himself. After several such meetings, it turned out that the girl was pregnant. She gave birth in the Mukachevo district hospital, where the chief doctor was Vasily Vasilyevich Vasyuta, a friend of Baloga. Viktor Ivanovich took upon himself all the material support for the process.

The born girl is sent to an orphanage in the city of Svalyava, because the young woman abandoned her and went missing. The head of the Transcarpathian Regional Education Department Oleg Gavashi takes the child under his care, and a little later the baby is adopted by… Victor. Not Yushchenko, but Baloga. They call her Sofia, and Viktor Yushchenko is taken as her godfather.

In 2003, an incident occurred when the tipsy head physician of the mentioned hospital, Vasily Vasyuta, under the influence of the green serpent, recalled to Baloga the story of Sophia and the missing girl. The reaction was immediate – the beaten doctor was taken to the hospital, half to death.

Even during his presidency, Viktor Yushchenko did not deny himself the pleasure of visiting the forestry. According to rumors, “butterfly girls” from the notorious Balogovo “Barva” were waiting for him there and providing intimate services. The girls themselves did not know who they were doing well, because they were always blindfolded. But Baloga is no slouch. He nevertheless decided to play it safe and recorded Yushchenko’s fascinating meetings on a video camera. By the way, an accident occurred with a videographer from Studio M (the central Transcarpathian channel owned by Baloga), who was filming an interesting movie: he was walking, fell, hit his head on the steps in the entrance and died.

Victor Baloga was the first to rush to help his friend during the “poisoning” story. If not for him, the public would never have known what and how Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. The analyzes were carried out with all “scientific” accuracy and reliability by Baloga’s friend and fellow countryman Nikolai Korpan, a doctor at the Austrian clinic “Rudolfinerhaus”. True, David Zhvania denied rumors of poisoning. Subsequently, another detail became known. It turns out that the American philanthropist Alex Rovt, a native of Mukachevo Alexey Semenovich Rovt, an old friend of Viktor Baloga, supplies Ukraine with modern “youth injections” for high ranks. If you build a logical chain, then everything becomes clear.

The friendship between Yushchenko and Baloga began to shake in 2008. Suddenly, Viktor Ivanovich folds his party card and leaves the Our Ukraine party. He joins the pro-presidential party Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense (NUNS) and becomes a key figure in the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko confrontation. And literally a couple of months later he leaves NUNS to create his own party – the United Center (UC). It was headed by Baloga’s comrade-in-arms, Igor Kril. A little later, politicians decided to create a collegial body to manage the European Center, which naturally included Viktor Ivanovich.

In 2009, Baloga resigned from the post of Head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine of his own free will, and then began to harshly criticize his godfather. He called Yushchenko apathetic and ridiculed his attempt to run for president in 2010. He argued that Viktor Andreevich, during his entire tenure in the highest government position, was unable to fulfill the promises that he made to Ukrainian society during the 2004 election campaign. Viktor Andreevich, in turn, noted that the Head of the Secretariat is simply waiting for political dividends. And it was true. On the eve of the upcoming 2010 elections, Viktor Baloga becomes the leader of the United Center party, and after them he makes friends with the new President Viktor Yanukovych. Viktor Fedorovich, by his decree, again appoints Baloga as head of the Committee on Emergency Situations and for the Protection of the Population from the Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster, and a year later gives the chair to the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

In 2012, Viktor Ivanovich was sent into retirement, and he began a solo career. For two years he has been a people’s deputy of Ukraine of the 7th convocation, won elections in single-mandate district No. 69 (Transcarpathian region), nominated by the United Center party. Member of the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration. Since November 2014 – People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the VIII convocation.

Victor Baloha. “Barvostan” and millions

Today “Barva” is a state within a state. It exists at the expense of the Ukrainian budget, and the Transcarpathian region is called “Barvostan,” emphasizing the scale of the Balogh empire. The company and its subsidiaries have a number of criminal cases. The most famous of them:

• Mukachevo State Agrarian College transferred to MKP “Goliath” (a division of Barva LLC) a plot of land for the construction of a building materials store. The issue price is 187 thousand 110 UAH;
• The Mukachevo City Executive Committee financed the commercial enterprise Mukachevo Garment Factory LLC from the budget. The asking price is 124 thousand UAH,
• On July 1, 2002, at an auction, the city executive committee sold the premises of the Mukachevo city printing house to Partner LLC, violating the law. The issue price is 366 thousand 764 UAH.
• After checking the facts of the work of the financial department of the Mukachevo City Executive Committee, it became known that, according to the proposal of the head physician of the Mukachevo Central District Hospital, Vasyuta V.V., funds in the budget of the City Executive Committee were distributed incorrectly. The issue price is 109 thousand UAH. Later, the same head physician appropriated an LSD-1100 device from the Aloka company, owned by the hospital, worth 845 thousand UAH.
• 100 thousand bottles of Russian vodka were detained in the Kyiv region. Based on the documents, its recipient was the Barva company, but its license for the wholesale trade of alcoholic beverages had expired. And one more fact of smuggling – a Barva road train with a large smuggled cargo was detained near the border with Slovakia. The price tag is several billion.

Needless to say, not a single criminal case was successful.

The question arises: who covered up this chaos? At the beginning, Baloga was helped by his godfather and part-time prosecutor of Transcarpathia, Yuri Benz. It was under the auspices of Benz that Viktor Ivanovich traded in contraband and sent cargo abroad. By the way, many Mukachevo entrepreneurs, ruined and humiliated by Barva with the help of local prosecutors, filed a lawsuit against this tandem in the European Court. And it was Benz-Balog who drove the former mayor of Mukachevo, Vasily Iltyo, to suicide. He left a suicide note: “Damn you, Baloga, Petyovka and Benz!”

The second person who “protected” Baloga’s business in Transcarpathia was Vladimir Vladimirovich Geletey, the brother of Valery Geletey, the current head of the State Security Administration of Ukraine. The name of Vladimir Geletey is closely connected with the drug business. There was irrefutable evidence regarding this, but Victor Baloga made sure that the cases were closed or lost. In this he was helped by the head of the Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime of the SBU, Tiberiy Durdinets.

Valery Geletey

Victor Baloha. Kaleidoscope of Mayhem

Separately, it is worth talking about the extravaganza of illegal activities of Viktor Baloga in Transcarpathia. The official distinguished himself not only in smuggling, his name is associated with inaction during large-scale environmental disasters in the region, as well as their creation, appropriation of historical monuments and the pocketing of Transcarpathian sanatoriums.

Ukrainian “Venice” without forest. The first time the Transcarpathian region was seriously damaged by floods was in 1998. Then 130 settlements were flooded, more than 2 thousand houses were destroyed, 18 people died. The region was declared a natural disaster zone. Leonid Kuchma even came to Transcarpathia to see with his own eyes the scale of the disaster. He was met by the young mayor of Balog, who did not beg, but promised to fix everything on his own. However, the government still allocated several million hryvnia to eliminate the consequences and strengthen the territory from floods.

Only in 2001 there was a repeated flood, which became catastrophic. Over 32 thousand houses were flooded, several thousand were completely destroyed and washed away by mudflows. Dozens of power lines, railways and other communications were damaged. It became clear that the regional authorities were not prepared for a catastrophe, and someone had pocketed the money allocated by the state several years ago. This someone was Viktor Baloga. During the first flood, experts identified the cause as massive deforestation.

Deforestation

Private companies were involved in this, and permission was given by the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration. Under the leadership of the newly appointed governor Viktor Balogh, they even created a special commission that issued a license for logging. Thus, by 2000, in Transcarpathia there were about 300 companies barbarously cutting down forest along water bodies using heavy equipment, including tracked ones. Barva, or rather its subsidiaries, was also involved in this case. The government still managed to eliminate the consequences of the natural disaster.

In 2005, disaster struck Transcarpathia again. 715 residential buildings were flooded, 30 thousand hectares of agricultural land went under water, 133 settlements were left without electricity and telephone communications. Governor Baloga sincerely sympathized with his fellow countrymen. He even flew a helicopter over the disaster zone, assessing the scale and amount. Then I wrote to the Cabinet of Ministers with a request to allocate 40 million UAH.

Poisoned Transcarpathia

During Baloga’s second governorship, another terrible environmental disaster occurred. At the beginning of 1998, tons of heat-resistant filler “Premix” was transported to the region and stored anywhere. It is used in braking system technologies. This substance has class 1 toxicity and is dangerous to humans. So, leaky bags of “Premix” were lying everywhere, even in the basements of schools and bakeries. All this was hushed up, and only thanks to journalists did the public sound the alarm. Victor Baloga disowned chemicals, but, however, appealed to the Government to allocate money for disposal. The required amount is 3 million hryvnia.

Only now Viktor Ivanovich kept silent about the interesting fact that in 1999 he personally issued permission to import Premix.

Victor Baloga is involved in another case that could lead to an environmental disaster. In the late 90s, the odious criminal Semyon Mogilevich and the Italian mafia clan in the United States Genovese agreed to process radioactive waste in Ukraine and create a nuclear repository. Then they were unable to carry out the plan, but found a way out – to involve the young but talented Victor Baloga in the business. He managed to get closer to completing the task, receiving the post of Minister of Emergency Situations. Viktor Ivanovich was even able to win Viktor Yushchenko to his side. In tandem, they began to talk about creating a nuclear burial ground in the Chernobyl zone. But the plan failed again. Something, of course, tells me that Baloga will achieve his goal.

Pocketed locks

Victor Baloga loves royal gifts. In 2008, the Mukachevo City Council at an extraordinary session presented Viktor Ivanovich with a gift of the pearl of Transcarpathia – the Mukachevo Palanok castle. More precisely, I gave it to his wife for long-term lease. But the fact remains a fact. Viktor Ivanovich gave the castle an attractive appearance (funds for repairs were allocated from both the city and regional budgets), and in the place of director he put his own man – Dmitry Gavashi (the son of Governor O. Gavasha, his godfather). The public again rebelled at Baloga’s unprecedented impudence, but the Mukachevo mayor’s office responded that everything was legal. Only one participant responded to the supposedly widely publicized competition to rent out the castle, and was declared the winner. And this was the High Castle society, among the founders of which were relatives of Viktor Ivanovich. Everyone understood that the procedure was carried out with violations, some deputies even appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office, but everything went “the Transcarpathian way,” that is, Baloga was always right. Note that due to the resonance, the High Castle refused to lease the castle for 46 years, virtually forever.

A year later, Viktor Ivanovich set his sights on another Transcarpathian cultural value – the Palace of Count Schönborn, located on the territory of the Karpaty sanatorium complex and which is the property of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine. There he wanted to place his family estate. The scheme of appropriation is simple and worked out – the Transcarpathian regional council transfers the castle into communal ownership to the Chinadievsky village council of the Mukachevo region, whose budget was 120 thousand hryvnia, and then it is “saved” by Viktor Baloga, since the village council cannot maintain the relic. The scheme failed.

“Repressed” sanatoriums

Ukrainians learned about the Perlyna Karpat sanatorium after 65 children were poisoned there during their recovery. The Sanitary and Epidemiological Service established that the institution was operated with gross violations – children were served expired food, food was prepared in unsanitary conditions. It also turned out that the sanatorium did not have the right to accept children for health improvement, since there was no appropriate license for this. The scandal brought to light the question of the owners of the sanatorium, which had been raised for several years in a row, but to no avail. It turned out that the sanatorium is managed by the regional council, which is completely subordinate to Victor Baloga. The scandal was quickly forgotten, and Viktor Ivanovich decided to play it safe and hold an auction that would completely allow him to gain control over Perlina Karpat. The cost of the sanatorium at the auction was 26 million. But it never went through.

Private air travel

In 2008, the People’s Self-Defense deputy group accused Viktor Baloga of misuse of state property and state budget funds. Allegedly, Viktor Ivanovich and his relatives carried out private flights at public expense. We are talking about 24 flights by planes of the state aviation enterprise “Ukraine”, which have non-commercial status and were carried out on weekends. Most of the flights took place along the route Kyiv-Uzhgorod-Kyiv, several – Kyiv-Uzhgorod-Simferopol and Simferopol-Uzhgorod-Kyiv. Among the people who flew with Baloga were his wife Oksana and children, brother Ivan Baloga, Vasily Petevka, Igor Krill and his wife, the names Stetsyuk, Onischuk, Pukshin, Ivy, Gavashi and others were also mentioned. Baloga flew 328 thousand UAH.

Vessel “Faina”

Viktor Baloga appeared in the story of the seizure of the Faina ship with Ukrainian weapons on board by Somali pirates. As it turned out, Viktor Ivanovich is related to the company LYRA ENTERPRISES, which acted as a forwarder for the Faina vessel, and also fully paid for the previously mentioned charter flights of Mr. Baloga.

In addition, “Faina” departed from Odessa, where at that time Vakhtang Ubiria – Vakha, an old friend of Semyon Mogilevich, who was present at the funeral of the crime boss Gesha, settled. Vakha was actively involved in cargo transportation in Odessa and even met with the owners of the vessel “Faina”. But Ukrainian interests in the African region, where Faina was heading, were represented by the state company Atlas. Its leader, Sergei Kiyanichenko, was a member of the council of Viktor Baloga’s “United Center” party. Coincidences, as they say, are obvious.

Well, the main person involved, who owned Faina, is Vadim Alperin.

Land from Yanukovych

In 2008, Viktor Fedorovich made a gift to Baloga – several hundred hectares of land in Transcarpathia. Or rather, he transferred 350 hectares for permanent use to the Sinyak Tourism Development Center, which is controlled by Viktor Ivanovich. By the way, the price of land per hundred square meters in this area at that time reached 4.5-6 thousand dollars. By the way, not far from this “gift” there was already Baloga’s brother’s restaurant “Poisson”, where coffee with a bun in 2008 cost about 120 UAH.

Hangout with kids

In 2015, information appeared in the media that an underground den was exposed in Hungary, where children, boys and girls, kidnapped in Ukraine, were forced into prostitution. The youngest of whom was 8 years old, the eldest was 12. The Hungarian police announced the involvement of high-ranking Ukrainian officials in a criminal network involved in child trafficking. The name of Viktor Baloga was named, who oversees the activities of Transcarpathian crime bosses who transported kidnapped children abroad for subsequent sale to brothel owners. Viktor Ivanovich left the situation without comment.

Shooting in Mukachevo

In 2015, Ukraine was rocked by unprecedented criminal clashes in the small town of Mukachevo. The action was more like an action movie: Right Sector fighters drove up to the Antares sports complex in 4 jeeps, after talking with a security guard, they shot him in the head, blocked traffic on the street, attacked the arriving police, rammed and shot their cars, and while leaving They took a fifth-grader hostage, but then released the child… (versions of what happened in the article Mukachevo, versions of what happened: Right Sector, SBU, Ministry of Internal Affairs?) Representatives of the SBU entered into negotiations, and Viktor Baloga and Dmitry Yarosh also joined them. The soldiers surrendered. The topic was discussed for a long time in the Prosecutor General’s Office, Arsen Avakov took the case under personal control. However, everything was more than banal. A shootout broke out between the people of a criminal authority and people’s deputy from the Will of the People group, Mykhailo Lanyo, who heads a powerful organized crime group in Transcarpathia, and Viktor Baloga, who controls smuggling in the region. The conflict was related to the redistribution of the smuggling market. According to one version, the Lanyo group refused to pay tribute to Viktor Ivanovich, as the owner of the region. Then Baloga, without thinking twice, hid behind the Transcarpathian Right Sector and went to prove the truth.

Fight at the TV station

A few months ago, Viktor Baloga could not contain his emotions and decided to deal with his subordinates using fists and threats. The row took place on the premises of the M-Studio television company, which belongs to Viktor Ivanovich. The People’s Deputy was angry that the television and radio company was broadcasting not only him personally, together with his son-mayor (follow the link! The son-mayor is already funny in itself!)

Andrey Baloga

Because of this, Baloga, in the presence of journalists, attacked General Director Vladimir Shubts and began to threaten him. He promised to “crush him like a toad, tear out his filthy tongue and liver and feed him to the pigs.” Shubts wrote a statement to the police, but out of fear he refused to undergo examination by an expert regarding the beatings inflicted (he had marks on his face and neck from the People’s Deputy’s fingers). Criminal proceedings were opened on the fact of hooliganism.

Old debts

The head of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration, Gennady Moskal, decided to bring to the surface the murky stories of Balog’s dark past. On his official website, he wrote that former President Viktor Yushchenko, as well as the heads of his administrations Viktor Baloga and Vera Ulyanchenko, organized the “surrender of power” to Viktor Yanukovych, who served as President in 2010-2014.

According to him, these three high-ranking officials received almost one billion dollars for this. Viktor Ivanovich immediately responded to the attack in his direction and stated that he would send an appeal to NABU, in which he would demand a proper investigation.

But Gennady Moskal did not calm down. He threatened Baloga, if he contacted NABU, to reveal even more of his secrets. For example, how Yushchenko, Baloga and his deputy at the Secretariat Pukshin initiated the initiation of a criminal case against the current Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko for allegedly storing firearms; charter flights at the expense of the state, the fake poisoning of Yushchenko to increase his rating, the prosecution of David Zhvania on charges of fake sending the President.

Let us remind you that the confrontation between Baloga and Moskal has been going on since 2002. Then the ex-chief of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Transcarpathian region, police lieutenant general Gennady Moskal, replaced Viktor Baloga as governor. The newly appointed governor appealed to the central authorities with a request to conduct a comprehensive audit of the control and switchgear of Ukraine in the region. A team of auditors for the years 2000-2002, during the reign of Viktor Ivanovich, identified financial irregularities, illegal and inappropriate expenditures of budget funds totaling 39.2 million UAH. This is an impressive figure for a small area.

In addition, Moskal crossed the path of Viktor Ivanovich during the appropriation of Transcarpathian castles and sanatoriums.

How the story of the confrontation, which has taken a new turn, will end is unknown.

Victor Baloha. Luxury in Transcarpathian style

Viktor Ivanovich likes everything to be “bahato-style.” And there is no point in condemning him – finances allow it.

In 2008, Baloga bought an apartment in one of the most elite buildings in the capital. This wonderful house is located near the Golden Gate and faces Georgievsky Lane on one side and the square in front of the State Border Administration on the other. It is numbered along Reitarskaya Street. Some details that we managed to find out about the apartment itself. It is the only one on the floor and is listed as a “four-room” apartment, area 210 sq. m. meters. The price of this luxury is 4.8 million UAH.

In 2015, Viktor Ivanovich declared 79 thousand UAH. income, and his family members – 11 million UAH. 150 times more. Baloga’s entire income came from his salary. The people’s deputy uses 4 cars (Audi A8 L Quatro 2007, Audi A8 2012, Audi A8 2011 and Land Rover Defender 110 2008).

Viktor Ivanovich has no financial obligations or funds in bank accounts. But his family members keep 182,611 UAH in their accounts, and the amount of contributions to the authorized capital of enterprises is 16,748,755 UAH.

Baloga prefers expensive Breguet and Vacheron Costantine watches. The cost of copies is about 30 thousand dollars.

They say bills need to be paid and God sees everything. It is unlikely that anyone who imagines himself a “god” understands this.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

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