Viktor Zubritsky. Who is behind TV channel 112

Last week, Savik Shuster’s show was taken off the air by the 1+1 channel. However, it was aired on the 112 channel a few minutes later. Isn’t this channel afraid of the president or Kolomoisky, who will probably sue it now? Who is behind the most daring channel in the country? It is clear that its nominal owner, whose last name is Podshchipkov, is more of a figurehead. But the names of the people who are really behind this channel are Vitaly Zakharchenko and Viktor Zubritsky. And if the name of the first is very, very well known, then the name of the second is known only in narrow circles. Well, let’s try to find out who he is.

Viktor Zubritsky is a Poltava businessman. His name first surfaced in connection with the elections in Poltava in 2006. At that time, he was involved in real estate and PR. For example, he worked for mayoral candidate Viktor Zhivotenko. Apparently, it was during those years that he became friends with Zakharchenko, who was then deputy head of the Poltava tax service. There is no exact information about why they came together and on what grounds. By the way, his client lost the elections to Andrey Matkovsky.

The next time Zubritsky’s name surfaced was in connection with the assassination attempt on Filya Zhebrovskaya, the owner of the Farmak plant and the sister of the current Donetsk governor Pavel Zhebrivsky (Read more about them in the article Zhebrovsky-Zhebrivsky. Medicine, drugs, politics). It was in 2009 and the latter was then on Yushchenko’s team, which means he was able to stand up for his sister at the highest level and demand an objective investigation in order to punish the real culprits. Then Filya was wounded with a 5.62 caliber pistol near her own home. A certain citizen Leus was arrested in this case, who led them to Zubritsky. When he was arrested, they found an ID card of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, issued under a false name. Zubritsky himself told investigators that he was engaged in journalistic investigations and had nothing to do with the murder. Allegedly, he was conducting an investigation into the production of the narcotic tramadol at the Farmak enterprise. And for this he was imprisoned.

Nevertheless, the investigation “locked” him, as the organizer of the assassination attempt, in the famous Lukyanivske pretrial detention center in Kiev. From the press, everyone knows that staying in this detention center is far from easy. But for a certain amount of money, a relaxation is possible. The so-called VIP cell. No, this is not where Tymoshenko sat, she had a cell made especially for her. But quite tolerable “two-room” apartments are given to bankers, businessmen, in general, to anyone who can pay for them.

Zubritsky and Maksimov apparently became friends in prison. So much so that TV channel 112 is now located in the former premises of VAB Bank on Zoologicheskaya Street, which belongs to the latter.

Be that as it may, in 2012, with Zakharchenko’s rise to power (what a coincidence), Zubritsky is released, the case against him is closed. He starts doing what he did before prison – media and PR. The new young oligarchs from Donetsk, striving for power, desperately need media assets. Arbuzov opens BTB and buys a number of newspapers, Kurchenko buys UMH and Evolution Media. Zakharchenko also needs his own media and he entrusts work on them to Viktor Zubritsky. The media center “Contact” opens, but this is not at all interesting, practically doing nothing. Much more interesting is a certain television company “V-TV”, which produced the program “Ostanne poperedzhenya” for UT-1. In this program, the opposition of that time was harshly crushed. And in general, the police used it as a pretext for opening criminal cases. In attacks on the opposition, they used classic police operational measures with bribes and filming with hidden cameras. It is clear that such a program could not have been made without the help of the police and special equipment.

Channel 112 was launched at the same time as Euromaidan (another coincidence). The nominal owner of Channel 112 is Olga Zubritskaya. She is the wife of Viktor Zubritsky and the sister of the figurehead chairman Andrey Podshchipkov, mentioned at the beginning of the article. Zubritsky himself officially had the status of “creative producer” on the channel. But in fact, the channel belonged to Zakharchenko and Zubritsky. While Vitaly Zakharchenko was a minister, the channel took a fairly loyal position to the police. True, this was presented as freedom of speech, which requires showing the viewer both positions of the parties to the conflict. The channel produced videos about Berkut on the Maidan, where they were shown as white and fluffy peacekeepers. Together with the “For Peace” foundation, which was organized by adventurer Dmitry Nosikov, they worked on an action, the result of which was supposed to be the attraction of veterans of the special services to the Maidan, who, allegedly, were supposed to stand between Berkut and the people. There were several blatant setups of the Euromaidan self-defense on the TV channel’s air. However, it quickly became clear that Yanukovych was losing this fight and the TV channel began to play at objectivity.

Zubritsky immediately after the Revolution of Dignity surfaced in the schemes of the Minister of Internal Affairs Avakov (Read more about him: Arsen Avakov: the criminal past of the Minister of Internal Affairs). The new head of the Ukrainian police accused Viktor Zubritsky of organizing and coordinating squads of thugs, the so-called “titushki”, who beat up and provoked Euromaidan protesters. The same scheme involved Minister Zakharchenko himself, the head of the Interior Ministry department Pavel Zinov, an Armenian authority in Ukraine Armen Sargsyan. However, this scheme did not go any further. Zubritsky, apparently, left Ukraine. And in general, not a single person from this “Avakov scheme” was detained. Viktor Zubritsky was supposedly put on the wanted list by Interpol. However, his data is currently not in the wanted list.

Channel 112 still broadcasts to all of Ukraine. Its ratings are growing, it is the first among the country’s news channels, which means it has a huge influence on Ukrainians. The National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting has been trying in vain to “knock” the name of the channel’s owner out of 112’s lawyers for several years now. So far, all that the national regulator has been able to do is issue several warnings and file a lawsuit against the TV channel demanding that it be deprived of several frequencies, but not demanding that it be closed. So one should not be surprised by the attempts of the most odious personalities of the Yanukovych era to return to Ukraine. They never left here. At least from the media space.

Olga Kastornykh, for SKELET-info