Vitaly Bogovin: agricultural raider at the head of the Zaporozhye region. PART 1

The euphoria of the 2019 elections gradually faded, along with the ratings of the “green team”. Ukrainians who have seen the light and come to their senses are beginning to find out who they brought to power, having bought into the fairy tale about Vasily Goloborodko. Among these odious leaders are not only people’s representatives, but also ministers and governors appointed by the new government, including the head of the Zaporozhye Regional State Administration Vitaly Bogovin. How did a “simple farmer” manage to get this position and who is really hiding behind this mask? And why are many residents of the Zaporozhye outback afraid to talk about the new governor on camera?

The press wrote very little about the Goddess Governor, mostly just chewing on his income statements for last year, which turned out to be quite modest for a man who controls two dozen companies and 37 thousand hectares of land. They wrote a little about him earlier, when he was a candidate for deputy from the Servant of the People and went to parliament as “a man who created his own agricultural enterprise.” Well, let’s get to know this “prominent agrarian” better, and at the same time learn many of the secrets of the “Zaporozhye court”!

Vitaly Bogovin and President Zelensky

Vitaly Bogovin. Businessman from a collective farm

Bogovin Vitaly Viktorovich was born on August 17, 1969 in the village of Kuibyshevo, located in the Pologovsky district of the Zaporozhye region. During its history, this village has changed its name more than once: it was founded in 1782 as the village of Kamenka, in 1845 it was renamed Tsarekonstantinovka, in 1935 it became the village of Kuibyshevo, and in 2016, in the process of “decommunization” and “derussification”, They came up with a new, “Cossack” name for him, Bilmak. This strange name (Bilmak is a popular nickname for a man with a cataract) was given in honor of a local mound (Bilmak-grave), in which some one-eyed Zaporozhye ataman was allegedly buried.

All ideas for renaming always came from the outside, “from the center” – the village residents themselves, being pragmatic people, looked at these initiatives as a yard dog licking between its hind legs. As a result, the local community made a demand return the village to its original name, but her opinion did not interest the “pro-Ukrainian activist” at all. This is how more than seven thousand local residents of the village became “Bilmakovites”.

Vitaly Bogovin did not participate in these debates then, and when he became the head of the region, he never remembered the petitions of his fellow countrymen. Which is not surprising, since he is characterized as an apolitical “kurkuly”, ready to adapt to any government that gives him benefit and position. That’s all you need to know about his party affiliation! The green banners of the Servant of the People, under which Bogovin ran for the Verkhovna Rada in 2019 and became governor in 2020, became his first experience in politics. And he stood under them only because his business partners then became “servants of the people.” This is how a provincial agrarian, practically unknown to anyone, became a big boss, suddenly making a dizzying career…

But let’s go back to the beginning. In 1984, after graduating from the “eight-year school”, Vitaly Bogovin went to neighboring Primorsk and entered the Nogai Agricultural Technical School there to become a livestock specialist. Then, in 1988-90, he served in the army, after which he returned home and became a foreman of tractor drivers at the collective farm “Ukraine”, studying in absentia at the Dnepropetrovsk Agricultural University to become an agronomist. However, tractors, as well as agronomy, interested him much less than commerce. The efficient Bogovin became a collective farm “buy-sell-exchange”, whose services were indispensable in the first half of the 90s. Pushing grain, purchasing diesel fuel and fertilizers, without leaving himself without “remuneration,” became his main activity.

Receiving the diploma coincided with Kuchma’s abolition of collective farms – this is how the agricultural enterprise “Ukraine” appeared, in which Bogovin became deputy director for commercial affairs. And then everything went according to the classic scenario: the management “divorced and abandoned” the former collective farmers, taking over the agricultural enterprise and creating on its basis in 2000 the eponymous LLC “Ukraine” (USREOU 03749037). It controls 7 thousand hectares of land, now belongs to Sergei Shaidovsky, and in 2018 it was completely re-registered in the Sumy region. Now the enterprise has no visible connection with Bogovin – perhaps he left it with his share a long time ago. It seems like a very good share, since then many other enterprises appeared in Bogovin’s “portfolio”. However, according to sources Skelet.Infonot all of them he acquired through a fair deal.

He also has a younger brother, Evgeny Bogovin, who has always been his companion and most reliable assistant. Evgeny Bogovin did not graduate from universities, he only has the Nogai Agricultural Technical School behind him (he went there after his brother), but it was he who became the general director of the Landfort holding. Bogovin Jr. has a reputation as a “jack of all trades,” including in terms of using brute force, without which it is difficult to become a successful agrarian in modern Ukraine. Therefore, it is not surprising that several years ago Evgeny Bogovin suddenly became a volunteer, providing some kind of assistance to the “lads in the ATO” (“fed”, as evil tongues said). It is unknown whether any of this help reached the front, but local veterans’ organizations declared Evgeniy Bogovin a “true patriot” and their great friend. But it is the former ATO participants who form the backbone of the private armies used in the agrarian war for crops and land!

Evgeniy Bogovin

Vitaly Bogovin. Governor’s Companions

In 2000, Vitaly Bogovin became the director of the agricultural firm “Batkivshchyna” (30791236), created in the same Pologivsky district on the basis of the dissolved collective farm “Rodina”. Behind this short line in his official biography lies another scandal in his turbulent life. As a rule, directors of agricultural firms are not simply replaced, and new ones are not accepted upon announcement – and in this case, Bogovin’s appointment was a consequence of the transfer of control over the agricultural firm to other hands. According to sources Skelet.InfoBogovin and people associated with him crushed “Batkivshchyna” under themselves, putting it into debt with the help of fuel and fertilizer schemes that they traded in the area.

The result of Bogovin’s work in Batkivshchyna was its division into two parts: in 2006, NPO Agrofirm Batkivshchyna LLC (34217120) was registered, the director of which was then Evgeniy Bogovin. The main beneficiary of both companies for the last 10 years has been Alexander Mistyuk (earlier information about the owners is not available).

However, the most interesting things were not included in his biography. It does not say how and when the provincial grain and fertilizer dealer Vitaly Bogovin became close to the young general director of the Agrosintez corporation (30345439) Vadim Kovernik, who became his close friend and second (after his brother) main business partner. Agrosintez, registered in Cherkassy, ​​was engaged in trading fertilizers from Cherkassy Azot and other manufacturers. Vitaly Bogovin was first a regular customer of Agrosintez, and then, having become friends with Kovernik, he became an “exclusive distributor” in the area.

Vadim Kovernik

In 2002, the Agrosintez corporation established its branch in the Zaporozhye region in the form of an LLC of the same name (EDRPOU 31880541), the director and founder of which is currently Vadim Kovernik. In this company he has two very interesting partners. The first is Vladimir Ilyich Slesarenko, who also owns the companies “International Agrocenter” (33894273) and the private enterprise “Agrosintez-plus” (32814569). And another person with the same full name is the director of Ecological and Tourist Center in Parkovoy LLC, re-registered in the annexed Crimea (OGRN 1149102134235). By the way, Vitaly Bogovin has a plot of 14 acres near Yalta, on which he planned to build a house.

The second companion, or rather the second, is Anna Nikolaevna Taran. A person with the same name was an assistant to People’s Deputy Dmitry Dobkin (Mikhail Dobkin’s younger brother) and the head of his charitable foundation (38157322), as well as a co-founder of the public organization “Forum for the Rescue of Dnepropetrovsk” (33907402). Maybe they are namesakes – or maybe not…

The biography of Vitaly Bogovin also states that he allegedly became a businessman only in 2006, when he established the Bizon-Tech private enterprise (34216986), engaged in the trade of fertilizers, herbicides and seeds. Readers are told that before this, Bogovin was only a hired top manager of agricultural enterprises, not leaving the fields. But why? It seems that the new Zaporozhye governor decided to rewrite his “life”, removing from it details that he would not like to disclose. And if you believe this official biography, then he began working with Kovernik only in 2008, when he acquired an equal share in Bizon-Tech. But this is a lie!

Land race

A year later, the friendly partners decided to start growing grain themselves, for which they acquired the agricultural firm NPP Sladkovodnoe (USREOU 35815811), whose main asset was 2.8 thousand hectares of land. It became the first official latifundia of Bogovin and Kovernik, with which their agricultural holding “LANDFORT” began. And yet, until 2012, their main business was trading in agricultural chemicals and seeds through the Bizon-Tech structures, which later grew into the BKW Group (which united their main assets).

In 2012, they were joined by the newly created agricultural company Alliance (37957216), which controls almost 6 thousand hectares of land. The details of this merger were also not disclosed, but it is known that two years later, Alliance, for some reason, officially left LANDFORT. Perhaps the reason is that its owner and director is Crimean Dmitry Khvedzevich – here we again see the Crimean trace in Bogovin’s schemes. The real relationship between the Alliance and the Bogovin-Kovernik group remained hidden from the public.

In 2013, the partners acquired the agricultural company “Vozrozhdenie” (30844848), located near Volnovakha (Donetsk region). This added another 2.8 thousand hectares of land to them. From that moment on, Bogovin and Kovernik began a land race, increasing their latifundia by acquiring new agricultural firms. In 2014, they became the owners of Aloins-Agro LLC (32721464) and Pridonetskoye LLC (00853286), adding another 11.8 thousand hectares of arable land to their land bank.

It is interesting that in 2019 (before the elections) both of these enterprises were transferred to the BKV Group company, registered in Cyprus at the address Nicosia, Stavrou Street, building 56, office 104. The beneficiaries of the Landfort private enterprise are registered at the same address. Dnepr (39672576), private enterprise Lendfort-Azov (25223209), agricultural firm Vishnevataya (40921623) and other enterprises also included in the Bogovin-Kovernik agricultural group.

In 2015, they acquired the agricultural firm Vesna (39674699) and the private enterprise Kolosistoe (renamed Landfort-Dnepr). In 2017, Bogovin and Kovernik became the owners of the Vishnevataya agricultural company. In 2018, they merged the Progress private enterprise (30085680) with 2.5 thousand hectares of land and Agronik-2017 LLC with 900 hectares. But their main prey was the private enterprise “Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)” (renamed “Landfort-Azov”) with 8.8 thousand hectares – this increased the total land bank of the latifundists to 37 thousand hectares! Its creator, Anatoly Nikolenko (People’s Deputy of the first convocation), who led his brainchild for more than twenty years, died soon after.

As you may have noticed, they made all the main acquisitions after the second Maidan, after the start of the ATO, in the period 2014-2018, when an agrarian war for land broke out in Ukraine, in which raiders used private armies of “titushkas” and “ veterans”, as well as proven schemes for acquiring enterprises through debt schemes. The methods by which the Bogovin brothers and Vadim Kovernik expanded their land bank can be guessed from the scandalous story of the Khodatsky Rod farm, leaked to the press. Journalists then managed to contact the owner of the farm, who turned out to owe Bogovin’s company “Bison-Tech” more than three million hryvnia. According to the farmer, this debt was created artificially, and threats from Bogovin’s people forced him to admit it, which turned out to be not empty: one night the farmhouse was set on fire. Case went to courtwho immediately sided with Vitaly Bogovin, who said that the farmer had made it all up so as not to repay the debt.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Bogovin Vitaly: agricultural raider at the head of the Zaporozhye region. PART 2

DOSSIER: Sergey and Vladimir Kaltsev: long-rotten pillars of the OPZZH in Zaporozhye. Part 2

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