Victor Bondik: ammonia schemes of three presidents. PART 1
The largest and most rampant corruption flourishes at the level of management of state enterprises, and it is practically not affected by the change of power in Ukraine. A striking example of this is the history of the State Enterprise “Ukrkhimtransammiak”, all of whose directors distinguished themselves in theft and corruption schemes. And the first among them was Viktor Bondik, who managed the enterprise from 2007 to 2016, and robbed it, according to various estimates, from 150 million to a billion dollars! But why isn’t Bondyk already behind bars, and why are other leaders continuing to embezzle at Ukrkhimtransammiak?
“Behind a high fence, Viktor Bondik lived in a house, he indiscriminately put the device on everyone around him,” – this is how, somewhat parodying Igor Irtenyev, one could describe the public scandal that erupted in 2015 in the city of Bucha, which for the first time “glorified” Bondik on the whole country. Then he amazed everyone with a 13-meter fence (an absolute record), with which Bondik fenced off his estate from neighboring houses and, in general, from the prying eyes of passers-by. But Ukrainians did not yet know that behind this mega-fence lived one of the country’s largest and “uneradicable” corrupt officials.
Donetsk affairs
Bondik Viktor Anatolyevich was born on October 28, 1971 in Donetsk, in the family of a simple miner. However, he has a difficult older brother, Valery (born 1964), who “made it into the world” on his own, and then helped the younger one. Despite the age difference, the brothers are very similar to each other, like twins, so their photos are often confused in the media.

Valery Bondik (still from TV show)
Valery Bondik is a more famous and public person than his brother Viktor – after all, he was a people’s deputy (5th and 6th convocations, according to the Party of Regions list), was Deputy Minister of Justice in the Yanukovych government (2007), then a member of the High Council of Justice Ukraine. However, his work biography began as a Soviet political officer – just like the current head of the Ministry of Social Policy, Andrei Reva. Valery Bondik served briefly as the political officer of a company in Turkmenistan, and then for certain merits he was transferred to Hungary, where he became the political officer of a military unit (which is, at least, a battalion), where he served for 4 years. It should be noted that the political officer in the Soviet army was the first assistant of the “special department” and worked closely with the KGB.
In 1990, he retired from the army and got a job as an instructor in the ideological department of the Donetsk city committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. After the State Emergency Committee and the ban of the CPSU, the communist propagandist Valery Bondik managed to retrain as a legal consultant, finding himself a job in the management of the Donetsk Railway – from that moment his legal career began, although he received his legal education only in 1996, at the Ukrainian Law Academy (now – National Law University named after Yaroslav the Wise).
Valery Bondik often changed jobs, moving from public service to private business and back. But in his motley biography it is worth especially noting two points. The first is his work as the head of the legal department of the Donetsk confectionery company “AVK” (1996-98). This company was created by Vladimir Avramenko and Valery Kravets, former employees of Soviet trade and supply officials, and Avramenko even managed to work in the Donetsk city committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine – perhaps there he met Bondik. Avramenko and Kravets were members of the “Donetsk clan”, but how close they were to its leaders is unknown. But in our time, the AVK company has become famous for its scandalous fraud, which allowed it to continue working in Donetsk captured by the separatists under the new brand “Lokond”.

Alexander Leshchinsky
The second important moment in the life of Valery Bondik is his work for Alexander Leshchinsky. It was he who was called “the vodka king of Donbass” by the late journalist Igor Alexandrov in the 90s. And it was precisely for this that Leshchinsky spent more than two years “having a nightmare” against Alexandrov with a criminal case for alleged libel. And Leshchinsky’s legal representative in this case was Valery Bondik!
After the massacre of Alexandrov, Valery Bondik helped Leshchinsky in seizing Slavyansk enterprises. And he not only helped, but even participated in an entire special operation to remove the then head of the Donetsk regional branch of the State Property Fund, Vladimir Altynnik. Leshchinsky decided to replace him with his protege Sergei Lazarenko. To do this, they not only “ran into” Altynnik, but also sent him to a pre-trial detention center for several months – on charges of exceeding official authority. And then it turned out that he was in the pre-trial detention center illegally, because the corresponding sanction was not signed by the then Donetsk prosecutor Viktor Pshonka. So, the most interesting thing is that among Altynnik’s lawyers was Valery Bondik – and, according to information Skelet.Infoit was he who then tried to ensure that his ward stayed in the pre-trial detention center as long as possible. “He helped like Medvedchuk helped Stus,” the Obkom publication gloomily joked about this.
It is interesting that the case of Aleksandrov and Altynnik was handled by the same prosecutor – Yuri Udartsov, one of Viktor Pshonka’s closest and most reliable people (there were rumors that they were distant relatives), involved in many high-profile scandals. Udartsov was also closely acquainted with Leshchinsky, providing him with services, and directly with Valery Bondik, who worked for him. However, there is information that Bondik met Udartsov and Pshonka even before his work for Leshchinsky, and that they recommended him. But be that as it may, Valery Bondik became a very trusted man of the “Donetsk clan” – so much so that at the beginning of 2004 they delegated him to Kyiv, a member of the Central Election Commission – in order, together with Sergei Kivalov, to prepare large-scale fraud in the presidential elections. He was not a member there for long: on December 8, after the Maidan happened in Kyiv, the frightened deputies of the Verkhovna Rada backed down and threw out the “Kivalovites” from the Central Election Commission, including Valery Bondik. But he did not sit idle for long, and already in March 2006 he himself became a people’s deputy, and then the first deputy minister of justice, who was then Alexander Lavrinovich. According to sources Skelet.InfoBondik was appointed to this high position for a reason, but was assigned to Lavrinovich as a “supervisor”. But Valery Bondik spent his second parliamentary term (2007-2012) as deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on justice.
Crimean Deriban
In the spring of 2007, the Bondik brothers managed to make quite a scandal in Crimea, which everyone had long forgotten about, so it would not be superfluous to remember this. By the way, this was practically the first mention of Viktor Bondik in the press, not counting his appearance on the list of deputies of the Donetsk Regional Council (Party of Regions faction) in 2006. Then all that was known about him was that Viktor Bondik had a diploma in mining engineering, and worked as the development director of Ukrinterstandard and lived between his native Donetsk and Kiev. However, a year later he and his brother began to visit Crimea frequently. The purpose of these visits became known on May 29, 2007, when an open appeal from sixteen deputies of the Livadia village council to the chairman of the Yalta organization of the Party of Regions and the Prime Minister himself, Viktor Yanukovych, was published.
The deputies complained to them about Viktor Bondik, who, according to them, was “a nightmare” in order to force them to allocate land plots in this historical resort area to the companies “Levada”, “Our House Livadia”, “Livadia Baths”, “Chairinvest” and “Gornoelittsentr”, which deputies called fake. The plots claimed by Viktor Bondik were also named separately: 3 hectares of land in the village of Gorny, 2.7 hectares in the village of Vinogradny, six plots in Livadia on Baturina Street (not far from the Livadia Palace), and two plots near the Nizhnyaya Oreanda sanatorium. Wow request!
At the same time, Viktor Bondyk called himself “the representative of Kyiv in Livadia from the Party of Regions” and “a close friend of the Yanukovych family” – and, judging by these statements, claimed to be the “supervisor”. In his arsenal, in addition to loud phrases “do you know who is behind me?!”, there were not only threats against individual intractable deputies, but also the help of his brother (at that time – Deputy Minister of Justice), as well as people’s deputy Artem Pshonka , who bombarded the Livadia Permanent Council with parliamentary requests and initiated a series of checks of its activities. By the way, if Viktor Pshonka’s son was then No. 128 on the Party of Regions’ electoral list, then Valery Bondik was No. 101 – and that said a lot!
Viktor Yanukovych’s reaction to this scandal is curious: he did not even think of punishing Bondik, but told reporters that many people refer to his name “for the sake of business.” Thus, Bondik’s words about being special, close to the “family”, were not empty boasting.
It is worth remembering some other scandals that preceded this story. For example, in the same spring of 2007, Deputy Minister of Justice Valery Bondik received a corruption charge from the SBU: it alleged that in April of that year Valery Bondik and member of the High Council of Justice Valentin Paliy flew to Crimea on a charter flight Kyiv-Simferopol, and payment for this flight (in the amount of 61,610 hryvnia) was issued in the name of Bogdan Kozlov, who turned out to be… a supermarket cashier! Vitaly Bondik himself put on an innocent face and claimed that he “bought a flight ticket for 600 hryvnia,” but this accusation was confirmed by documents that were then published in the media:
Valery Bondik hid from these accusations, first behind his position, then behind his deputy mandate – and then they forgot about him (although it’s not a sin to remember again). Moreover, in October 2007, he showed up at the SBU, but not to confess, but under the guise journalist who came to the press conferenceand brazenly demanded an apology from the SBU press secretary.
In addition, the activity of the Bondikov brothers in Crimea was not limited only to Livadia. During 2007, Valentin Bondik, with the help of his brother and their Donetsk patrons, staged a war in Crimea against the local prosecutor Viktor Shemchuk. He himself was up to his ears in corruption, and also became famous for his passion for collecting land in elite resort areas. But Shemchuk, a resident of Ternopil, was not part of the team of “Donetsk prosecutors” and was a stranger to them; moreover, he found protection for himself in the Secretariat of President Yushchenko. However, in 2013, Shemchuk found a common language with the Donetsk people and even received from Yanukovych first the post of governor of Lvov (March), and then presidential adviser (October).
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Bondik Victor: ammonia schemes of three presidents. PART 2
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