Beekeeper, Cossack and Kuchma-Yanukovych frame. The little-known past of the new head of the State Property Fund: the last wave of large privatization in Ukraine will be led by the chief of the Cossack headquarters, “Leonid Kuchma’s personnel reserve” and the figure who welcomed the presidential ambitions of Viktor Yanukovych.
Published in the publication Commander-in-Chief (Translation: Argument)
Who is Vitaly Trubarov?
The new head of the State Property Fund, Vitaly Nikolaevich Trubarov, is an example of commercialism: last year his mother gave him 250 thousand hryvnia, and was forced to pay another 70 thousand to her son as rent. But what is more striking is not the financial relationships in the official’s family, but his checkered past. The latest wave of big privatization in Ukraine will be led by the Cossack chief of staff, “Leonid Kuchma’s personnel reserve” and the figure who welcomed Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential ambitions.
Over the next five years, the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) plans to sell about a thousand properties; the most attractive ones may go under the hammer as early as 2017-18. Among the most tasty morsels are Centrenergo, Turboatom, Agrarian Fund, State Food and Grain Corporation, United Mining and Chemical Company. The state’s revenue from the sale of these heavyweights should exceed 10 billion hryvnia. Since last Wednesday, Vitaly Trubarov has been responsible for preparing for the last big wave of privatization in his capacity as acting chairman of the State Property Fund. “Dark horse”, appointed under pressure from Vladimir Groysman at the last government meeting.
According to Glavkom, this personnel decision was strongly opposed by some members of the Cabinet, primarily Justice Minister Pavel Petrenko. They say that the appointment does not comply with the law. This is true. According to the Law on the State Property Fund, in the absence of the chairman of the State Property Fund, his duties are performed by one of his deputies in accordance with the distribution of responsibilities. Instead, the government entrusted this mission to Trubarov, the Foundation’s chief of staff. According to the former head of the State Property Fund, Alexander Bondar, the consequences will be far-reaching – all agreements that Trubarov will sign will be recognized as illegitimate and void in the future. “We can put an end to big privatization, since every contract (in the future) can be canceled,” explains the ex-official.
Of course, the government had alternatives: today the Fund has three deputies: Vladimir Derzhavin, Yuri Nikitin, Evgeniy Astashev. According to the law, they could claim the role of “acting officer.” What pages from Trubarov’s biography, despite the risk described above, gave him preference?
The chairman of the state property fund, with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada, is appointed and dismissed by the president. Obviously, in five months, Petro Poroshenko has not found a candidate who could please him and receive parliamentary support. From the moment of the dismissal of the Chairman of the Foundation Igor Bilous in April of this year until the last moment, the status of and. O. had Dmitry Parfenenko.
The autobiographical certificate of the new head of the State Property Fund may cause envy. As of 2003, when 30-year-old Trubarov headed the branch of the State Property Fund in the Donetsk region, his work experience barely exceeded three years. Of these, less than a year in the Fund. At the end of the 2000s, he tried himself as deputy head of the property department of the Donetsk regional council and head of the tax office in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk. During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, he moved to the capital, where he became deputy and then head of the State Property Fund of Kyiv. Under the current government, Trubarov works as assistant to the chairman of the State Property Fund and head of the staff.
What is not in Trubarov’s official resume on the State Property Fund website, but would be worth knowing? Political ambitions and “Cossack” past.
The autobiography contains a large gap when the new head of the State Property Fund did not work or study: from 1997 to the beginning of 2000. This “blank spot” helps fill in another description of the official’s career path – on the website of the Donetsk National Technical University. It states that during 1998-2003. Trubarov was a member of the People’s Democratic Party and went from a member of the youth structure (People’s Democratic Youth League) to the chairman of the regional party organization. He was a member of the political council of the party. The YouControl analytical system shows that in the 90s he led the Donetsk cell of the People’s Democratic Party and its youth wing.
In the 2002 elections, Trubarov received 214th place on the list of the electoral bloc “For a United Ukraine!” as a member of the People’s Democratic Party. No. 1 on this list and the then head of the presidential administration, Vladimir Lytvyn, said that his team is the “personnel reserve of the guarantor” – Leonid Kuchma. And in the year of the Orange Revolution, Trubarov supported the nomination of Viktor Yanukovych to the post of president of the country by pro-government forces.
The ambitions of the young politician were not limited to Ukraine. In 2003, a meeting of the “Permanent Interstate Coordination Council of Cossacks of three countries – Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), Ukraine, Belarus” was held in Moscow. Ukraine was represented by two dozen people. Among them was Vitaly Trubarov, chief of staff of the Ukrainian Union of Cossack organizations. He arrived in the Russian capital when he had already been appointed head of the Donetsk branch of the State Property Fund. Some other Ukrainian representatives at that Cossack meeting are known today as ideological fighters for Novorossiya. For example, the ataman of the “Crimean Cossack Union” Vladimir Cherkashin.
Noteworthy is another participant in the mentioned Cossack meeting in Moscow – Sergei Lazarenko, a representative of the Permanent Interstate Coordination Council of Cossacks from Ukraine. According to the biography, it was Lazarenko who organized the Union of Cossack Organizations of Ukraine in the 90s (purely an agent structure of the Russian special services – A). And from 2000 to 2003 he headed the Donetsk branch of the State Property Fund. When Viktor Yanukovych left the post of governor to head the government, Lazarenko followed – in 2003 he was appointed deputy chairman of the State Property Fund. That is, Trubarov, having received a vacant seat in Donetsk, became Lazarenko’s successor both in the “Cossack” position and in the state one.
In 2005, Lazarenko was released along with the chief and head of the Foundation, Mikhail Chechetov (died under strange circumstances in February 2015). And then law enforcement agencies detained the ex-official on charges of organizing an assassination attempt on his own wife Erica (Lazarenko and his wife denied this).
In the second half of the 2000s, Lazarenko worked as head of the legal department of the Ministry of Coal Industry. In 2010, the media wrote about the kidnapping of his daughter, a student at the Institute of International Relations, for whose return a ransom was demanded.
According to Trubarov’s declaration, he and his wife received the main material assets over the past three years. In 2015, an apartment with an area of 107 square meters appeared. m. and worth almost 2 million hryvnia, a parking space for 130 thousand hryvnia, two plots of land in the Rivne region (his wife’s inheritance).
Last year we acquired a Hyundai GrandStarex, 2014. (for 300 thousand hryvnia) and Nissan X-Trail 2014. (for 240 thousand hryvnia).
A definite explanation of where the official got the money for large-scale purchases can be provided by the information that Vitaly Trubarov received a gift of 250 thousand hryvnia from his mother (Lyudmila Trubarova). He received another 70 thousand by renting out property to him. At the same time, according to the declaration, beekeeping brought almost 137,000 hryvnia to the official. The family keeps 27 thousand dollars, 77 thousand hryvnia and 10 thousand euros in cash.
FULL DOSSIER: Head of the State Property Fund Vitaly Trubarov: Cossack, beekeeper or henchman? PART 1
