Vitaly Khomutynnik: men and millions of the parliamentary “prodigy”. PART 1
Just five years ago, he was Viktor Yanukovych’s favorite “millionaire boy,” heading the youth wing of the Party of Regions and collecting kickbacks for VAT refunds. Today he is Igor Kolomoisky’s favorite, is a member of the “Renaissance” parliamentary faction and is again resolving issues with VAT refunds. What is the secret of Vitaly Khomutynnik’s unsinkability? And how did the once youngest deputy of the Verkhovna Rada manage to become the richest people’s representative today?
Crime Family
When Khomutynnik was first elected to the Verkhovna Rada in 2002, he actually became the youngest Ukrainian people’s deputy at that time (26 years old). Of course, this attracted the attention of the press, as did the fact that a year later Khomutynnik was invited to become an adviser to Prime Minister Yanukovych and head the “Regional Youth Union”. People unfamiliar with Khomutynnik’s true past whispered in surprise, “genius, prodigy!” – and he was glad to pick up this “bullshit”, writing a new biography for himself with his own hands. The same one in which, from the age of 15, he allegedly brought jeans from Turkey, then sewed workwear, earned his first million through hard work, and at the same time graduated from two academies. Because if Khomutynnik publicly published his real past, then, perhaps, he should immediately be deprived of both his deputy mandate and all the millions he has acquired. Which, however, is not too late to do now.
Khomutynnik Vitaly Yurievich was born on August 4, 1976 in the city of Makeevka (Donetsk region). His parents were not exactly “simple workers,” as he claimed. Mom, Valentina Ivanovna, who worked at the Spetsodezha plant, earned good money on illegal orders. And dad, Yuri Vladimirovich Khomutynnik, worked at the Rembyttekhnika plant (a regional network of consumer services plants) not as a telemaster, but as a boss. His son, of course, will not tell which one. But the sources Skelet.Info reported that Yuri Vladimirovich was directly related to the jewelry workshops within the scope of Rembyttekhnika, through which at that time the shadow circulation of gold, primarily criminal (stolen) gold, was carried out. And that even he allegedly had the nickname “Yura Golden” among local criminals, since he actively bought up “left gold” from both thieves and gypsies. In general, the stern Donbass jewelers of that time were completely different from the movie Jews in oversleeves. For example, in Donetsk (opposite the Moskva grocery store) the future crime boss Evgeniy Kushnir, whose older brother was a police investigator, worked in such a jewelry store from Rembyttekhnika. The same Kushnir whose gang will be accused of the murders of Akhat Bragin, Vadim Getman and Yevgeny Shcherban.

Yuri Khomutynnik
Young Vitalik did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps; the jewelry workshop seemed to him an incredibly boring place – just like school. He spent his best teenage years on the street, in the company of older boys who had fun with hooliganism and sometimes gob-stopping. Vitalik, the youngest of them, acted as a bully: he pestered the chosen victim, provoking her to slap him on the head, after which “defenders” appeared from around the corner. Sometimes the victim was offered to “pay off”; more often they simply beat him. And one day their whole company ended up in the police custody. Khomutynnik’s older friends went “to the zone,” but his father, a 15-year-old blockhead, got rid of him. Khomutynnik Sr. still managed to explain to his son that making big money in business is much better and safer than taking pennies from passers-by.
So our hero gave up with banal crime and went into shady business, for which he did not waste time on further studies in high school or vocational school.
In a turning point for the whole country in 1991, with a certificate of completion of 9 classes in his pocket, Vitaly Khomutynnik enrolled in the DP “Specialized Management of Reclamation and Construction Mechanisms” (in order to be listed somewhere), and he himself went into the shuttle business. Of course, the 15-year-old teenager could not transport anything from Turkey, and he did not need to: officially the business was run by Vladimir Lemeshko, Vitaly Khomutynnik’s senior friend, whom his father trusted. Khomutynnik’s dad also gave money for promotion, and he also provided his son with protection from local organized crime groups. While Makeyevka was “held” by Eduard Braginsky (nickname Chirik, was familiar with the young Viktor Yanukovych), Vasily Dzharty (nickname Vasya-Bita) and Samvel Martirosyan, longtime acquaintances of Yuri Vladimirovich from the gold schemes, no one came into Vitalik’s business. True, in 1994, a big criminal war began with shootings and Braginsky was killed, but by that time Vitaly Khomutynnik had already assembled his own “brigade”, taking into it the friends of his youth who had “left the zone” – convincingly explaining to them that now in their company the main He.
The Khomutynnik father could not get enough of his eldest son, who had come to his senses. The same could not be said about his youngest, Yuri Yuryevich Khomutynnik (born 1983), who since the late 90s led the wild life of a major, and decided to supplement his pocket money by stealing expensive cars. But more on that below…
Vitaly Khomutynnik. Under the wing of Shcherban
Vitaly Khomutynnik was always drawn to older men, and he simply had some kind of talent for winning their affection. We can say that this is what ensured his career as a multimillionaire and people’s deputy. And it began in 1993 with his acquaintance with Vladimir Shcherban, who was then deputy chairman of the Donetsk city executive committee. It was reported that the historical acquaintance of an already very influential person with a 17-year-old young businessman took place under very mysterious circumstances in the Makeevka cafe “Chance”. The rumors circulating about this did not say much, and therefore no one could discern any logic in the further close cooperation of these two people. Khomutynnik had to be either a distant relative of Shcherban, or introduced to him by some adults who had common business with Shcherban, or, at worst, become his lover. Otherwise, why would Shcherban allow a young merchant of Turkish down jackets into his inner circle?

Vladimir Shcherban
Whatever the reasons, it happened. And from that moment on, things went uphill for the Khomutynnikov family, especially when Shcherban became the chairman of the regional council (1994), and then the governor of the Donetsk region (1995). The unprofitable shuttle trade in “rags” was abandoned; in 1994, they created the company “Cascade”, in which Vitaly Khomutynnik took the position of director for foreign economic activity. In 1998, it was re-established as Cascade CJSC, whose co-owners included Vladimir Lemeshko and Vladimir Logvinov.
There is no clear information regarding Logvinov (it is hidden). Once the media reported that he was allegedly the father-in-law of Vitaly Khomutynnik (the father of his wife Svetlana), although this information was not confirmed. Other sources Skelet.Info reported that Logvinov was Shcherban’s man, others that he was a representative of Donetsk organized crime groups, and still others that he was an old friend of the Khomutynnikov family. Again, several options can be correct at once – isn’t it possible to marry the daughter of a family friend or boss? In any case, Logvinov’s weight was enough to take the director’s chair at Cascade, and then take his other daughter Olga there as an accountant.

Vitaly and Svetlana Khomutynnik
Cascade became a typical strong company of its time, dealing in everything: trading in coal, coke and metal, workwear (for this purpose the Spetsodezhda plant, where Khomutynnik’s mother had previously worked, was privatized), mining equipment, and participated in voucher privatization through Intime LLC “, carried out scams with bills of exchange, traded fuel through Ukrspetspostavka. Her success was ensured by the name of Shcherban – while he was the first person in the region. However, when the unlucky Viktor Yanukovych was put in the governor’s chair, Vitaly Khomutynnik very quickly found a way to his heart (or something else). And this was already much easier, having behind him both acquaintances in common with Yanukovych in the “thieves’ world”, and ex-governor Shcherban, and the reputation of large businessmen. In addition to success in business, Vitaly Khomutynnik was elected to the Makeyevka City Council in 1998 (and the 22-year-old boy headed the budget commission), and at the same time joined the Regional Revival Party of Ukraine, which was founded by the then mayor of Donetsk Vladimir Rybak (and then joined PPPU).
The patronage of Governor Shcherban helped Vitaly Khomutynnik resolve the painful issue with his education. He somewhere got hold of a certificate of complete secondary education and enrolled in the Donetsk State Academy of Management, from which he received a diploma in 2000. This is how the dropout became a graduate of the academy, taking a step towards his reputation as a “prodigy.”
In 1999, Vladimir Shcherban left for the governorship in the Sumy region, taking with him his young companion. Sumy residents still remember the period of Shcherban with a shudder: the greed of this man, who wanted to place his people in all positions and take over a very profitable business, knew no bounds. But in that “Shcherbanev terror” the role of the Khomutynnikov family was underestimated. As the media wrote, several relatives of Vitaly Khomutynnik spent time in very lucrative positions in the region, settling in there for many years. And he himself played the role of Shcherban’s envoy, when he came to business owners with a kind smile and an offer to share the business “on good terms” (in case of refusal, gloomy personalities came with “bad conditions”).
Thus, the joint business of Shcherban and Khomutynnik was supplemented by the following enterprises: “Nefteprommash”, Svesky Pump Plant, Belopolsky Machine-Building Plant, Belopolsky Cheese Factory, Lebedinsky Piston Ring Plant, Lebedinsky Bread Factory, Konotop Bread Processing Plant, Glukhovsky Meat Processing Plant, “Sumy Porcelain Plant”, “Krolevetspromarmatura”, Sumy Plant rubber products, Sumy clothing factory “Spetsodezhda”, Akhtyrskaya clothing factory, “Akhtyrselmash”, Romensky printing machine plant, Romensky dairy plant, etc. To jointly manage them, the North-Eastern Industrial Group corporation was created, 49% of the shares of which belonged to JSC ” Cascade”. The corporation operated until 2005, when Shcherban fled the country to escape a number of criminal cases brought against him. And then Vitaly Khomutynnik, who escaped with only a slight fright, tried to profitably sell a significant part of their joint business. Their former owners managed to return some of the remaining assets in 2005-2006, but only a part. It was the Sumy enterprises, “squeezed out” by Khomutynnik together with Shcherban, that then made up the bulk of his huge capital.
It is interesting that in 2004, Khomutynnik actively worked with the Brokbusinessbank of the Buryakov family, together with which he established the Brokbusiness Insurance Insurance Company, through which he later transferred the grain trading company Agrokontrakt to the ownership of his trading house Euroservice. This was the beginning of Khomutynnik’s insurance and agricultural business.
Kyiv huts Khomutynnikov
In 2002, Vasily Dzharty, an old “sidekick” of the Khomutynnikov family, who was then the mayor of Makeyevka, invited Vitaly to try his hand at big-time politics – and helped him get elected as a people’s deputy in electoral district No. 53. For this, Khomutynnik even re-registered in the ranks of the newly created Party of Regions, and a year later it was Dzharty who would advise the Donetsk people to put Khomutynnik at the head of the youth wing of the PR.
It is worth noting that, according to information from various sources, the Khomutynnikov and Dzharty families were connected not only by their past in the 80s and early 90s, but also by a little-known redistribution of business in the second half of the 90s. And they shared, among other things, the share of Samvel Martirosyan, who was in jail. It was reported that “Samvel’s share” constituted a significant, if not the majority, of Khomutynnik’s Makeevka assets. Then Samvel was released (seriously frightening Vitalik), but did not begin to repair the showdown, and hastily left the city without any complaints…
So, Vitaly Khomutynnik, who was elected as a people’s deputy, arrived in the capital and immediately bought himself a penthouse (17 Kovpaka Street, apt. 147). However, then he “came to his senses”: he transferred the apartment to his wife, in addition giving her a “zero” Toyota RAV4, and signed up for the Rada queue to receive government housing. And literally a few months later he received a three-room apartment on Poznyaki (Sribnokilskaya 24, apt. 168), where he registered his mother and younger brother Yuri (the same one who stole cars). But this was not enough for the Khomutynniks, and in 2005 they staged a raider seizure of the house at 6 Redutny Lane. The seizure was carried out through Globus-Invest, which was registered to Yuri Khomutynnik and German Volga (a relative of Vasily Volga).
In the same 2005, Khomutynnik decided to get himself… a water park in the Crimea. Perhaps he will build a small bungalow there for himself. The following happened: a certain businessman Nikolai Stefluk built a water park in Sevastopol for several years, together with Russian businessman Anatoly Zagorsky (50% each). But when the water park was almost ready, Zagorsky disappeared somewhere (he never showed up later), and Vitaly Khomutynnik appeared in his place, declaring that he was now the co-owner of the water park and demanded that the contract be reissued. “He brought a lawyer from Kyiv who undertook to redo that agreement. When, finally, I saw the newly created document, my name was no longer there at all,” Stefluk complained.
And still it wasn’t enough for the Khomutynniks! In 2007, with the help of his people in the Kiev City Council and his acquaintance with the mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, Khomutynnik received 12 acres of land in the Goloseevsky district, near Konchi-Zaspa itself, on the banks of the Dnieper. Almost immediately, their family illegally seized another 23 acres of territory (along with a piece of the dam), expanding their plot, and erected three houses there! At the same time, they blocked the road along the dam with their fence, and also cut off the only path to the Robinson children’s camp.
In August 2016, a group of activists staged a protest under the fence of the Khomutynnikov “estate”, and then, deciding that the illegally erected fence was not property protected by law, they demolished it, clearing the road. In response, to protect their possessions, the Khomutynniki called not only law enforcement officers, but also representatives of a certain “All-Ukrainian People’s Council for Anti-Corruption” (wow!), who also turned out to be ATO veterans. The situation looked quite funny: the ATO soldiers were called in to protect them from the ATO soldiers. However, in Ukraine this is already becoming commonplace.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
CONTINUED: Khomutynnik Vitaly: men and millions of the parliamentary “prodigy”. PART 2
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