Vladimir Satsyuk: the forgotten “poisoner” of Yushchenko. PART 1

Vladimir Satsyuk

The main suspect in the “dioxin case” all these years has been and remains former deputy head of the SBU Vladimir Satsyuk, at whose dacha Viktor Yushchenko was allegedly poisoned. After his forced flight to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), where he received the shoulder straps of an FSB general, Satsyuk already returned to Ukraine in 2011, and even tried to run for the Verkhovna Rada. It didn’t work out for him then, but he’s trying again, joining the current stream of returning political emigrants. And his son Vladislav has already followed in his father’s footsteps and is going to run in the parliamentary elections in the 62nd majoritarian district.

Vladimir Satsyuk can count on the fact that all suspicions against him, like the Yushchenko poisoning case itself, have long since become irrelevant. After all, this case was ruined and turned into a “dioxin booth” by Viktor Andreevich himself, who for several years made a political farce out of his mysterious illness. But with Yushchenko leaving the scene, Ukrainians quickly forgot about the former president, and his bees with pots, and about his poisoning with an allegedly huge dose of dioxin – which stubbornly refused to be removed from his body until the 2010 elections. The second defendant in this case, Igor Smeshko, has already run for president himself, and is now going with his party to the parliamentary elections – and his former deputy decided to join him. Moreover, Vladimir Satsyuk is called the cashier of the “Strength and Honor” party.

The question was also forgotten, to which no one gave a direct, honest answer: why, in fact, did “people’s candidate” Yushchenko, who daily denounced the “Kuchma regime,” go to a friendly dinner with two “watchdogs” of his enemy? Moreover, Satsyuk and Smeshko then not only headed the SBU, they were considered proteges of Viktor Medvedchuk, the most hated enemy of the “orange”.

The semi-official version from Yushchenko’s team said that the “Ukrainian messiah” went to negotiate with them about “going over to the side of the people.” And many fans of the “Orange Revolution” believed this. That’s just how I found out Skelet.Infothis was not the first meeting between Yushchenko and Satsyuk. By the time of the ill-fated dinner (September 5, 2004), they were old and good acquaintances, practically “Kents” – as eloquently evidenced by the photograph from their “rendezvous” at Satsyuk’s dacha, where he put his hand on Yushchenko’s shoulder in a friendly manner (which was only allowed friends of Viktor Andreevich). The photo taken by David Zhvania raised some other questions – for example, who was the fifth participant in this meeting? Perhaps the fifth cup with lighter tea belonged to Thomas Tsintsabadze, a man who remained behind the scenes of this scandalous story as a “driver”. Later, Tsintsabadze claimed that he had long been a close acquaintance of Satsyuk, and that this was not the first time he took Viktor Yushchenko to his dacha.

Vladimir Satsyuk: the forgotten “poisoner” of Yushchenko. PART 1 — Thus, the behind-the-scenes of Ukrainian politics turned out to be completely different from what was shown to the gullible people from the Maidan stage. Which became another argument in favor of the version that there was no poisoning, and Yushchenko simply used his illness for political purposes. And yet, answers to two questions have still not been received: what exactly connected Yushchenko and Satsyuk, and why did the former accuse the latter of involvement in his poisoning?

Vladimir Satsyuk: the forgotten “poisoner” of Yushchenko — **Sugar of the intelligence services**

Satsyuk Vladimir Nikolaevich was born on March 11, 1963 in the town of Malin, Zhitomir region. After school, he entered the local foundry and mechanical plant as a milling machine apprentice. Judging by his biography, Satsyuk for some reason was “late” for military service. He missed both of his 1981 calls, as well as the spring 1982, continuing to work at the plant, but from the fall of 1982 to the spring of 1987, he studied at the Kiev Higher Combined Arms Command School named after Frunze (closed in 1992) in his specialty “military tactical intelligence” and “German translator”. After graduating from college, until 1994, Vladimir Satsyuk served in the army: first in the Soviet Army, and then… but then it’s somehow unclear, because this page of his biography was “classified” when he later worked as deputy chairman of the SBU in the “zero” years.

According to sources Skelet.InfoSatsyuk was an officer of either the GRU or the KGB – in a word, the Soviet intelligence services. At the same time, this could only be a legend created later so that Satsyuk could get a leadership position in the SBU. It remains questionable where and whom he served from 1992 to 1994 – Ukraine or Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)? Hence the information that Satsyuk was a “sent Cossack” of the Russian special services, which is confirmed by other information that after his flight to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) he became an adviser to the director of the FSB with the rank of major general in this department.

But the most interesting thing is this: at the Kiev Command School, Satsyuk studied with Igor Potapenko and Sergei Fedorenko, and it was these two who played a very important role in his life – leading him into big business and big politics. Moreover, it was reported that Potapenko and Fedorenko also had a direct connection to the special services (after all, they studied to be intelligence officers), and the main one in their group was Potapenko – after all, he started their business.

While former Komsomol members and communists were hiding the “party gold” in commercial banks, this trio of secret service workers got involved in the sugar trade. There were rumors that they allegedly “stole” their first sugar either from army warehouses or from the State Reserve, having entered into a share with high-ranking officers of the rear service. Well, officially, in 1992, Potapenko, who left the army in connection with his entry into MGIMO (a well-known “incubator” of personnel for the special services), created the Ukrainian-Russian enterprise “UkrRos”. Sugar and sunflower oil were transported from Ukraine to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), and petroleum products were transported back. Two years later, Potapenko attracted his friends from the military school, Satsyuk and Fedorenko, to this business, who resigned from the army (Ukrainian or Russian?) for this purpose.

So, in 1994, Satsyuk became deputy director of the Tavr JV involved in this business, and when in 1996 UkrRos was reorganized (its Russian part merged with the Razgulay holding, and the Ukrainian one became a closed joint stock company), Satsyuk became its general director. At the same time, Potapenko allocated money for the purchase of their first sugar factory – the Palmira enterprise in the Cherkasy region. Over the next few years, the partners bought five more sugar factories in the Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Ternopil regions, in 1997 creating an entire holding on the basis of UkrRosa CJSC, the largest company of which was the UkrRos Sugar Union. Fedorenko became its main shareholder and chairman of the board, but sources reported that Satsyuk also controlled part of the shares, but when he became a people’s deputy, and then the deputy head of the SBU, he “hid” his business.

Fraudsters at Bank “Ukraine”

In the second half of the 90s, UkrRos’ business was doing fantastically well – in addition to sugar, the holding began to engage in transportation, gas and construction. Experts later noted that UkrROs was one of the few companies that did not try to attract money from outside and refused such offers. Typically, this was done by companies with good own financing, often “shadow” – for example, laundering money from organized crime groups or stolen government finances. Of course, the holding received generous cash injections from Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) from Potapenko (perhaps not only from him), but still there were suspicions regarding the “sugar special forces”. And as it turned out, they were quite justified.

In March 1998, Vladimir Satsyuk became a people’s deputy from the electoral bloc of the Village and Socialist parties. Who exactly were the sugar producers forced to “blame” Satsyuk for his parliamentary mandate – the main “villagers” Dovgan and Tkachenko or the socialist leader Moroz? There is a specific answer to this question: among the founders of UkrRos was Alla Aleksandrovna Peshko, the head of the department of the Kyiv City Endocrinology Hospital, a co-owner of many different companies, and at the same time the daughter of Alexander Tkachenko. And this explains why the matter was not limited to a mandate: after Tkachenko became chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Satsyuk was also given the portfolio of head of the committee on border and customs issues, the National Guard and National Security. This is how a previously unknown scout-sugar producer suddenly began to control two key topics: the national security of Ukraine and the border with customs. But that was just the beginning!

In the spring of 1998, the father of the Ukrainian banking system, Vadim Getman, the founder of Bank Ukraina, who remained its patron until his death, was killed in Kyiv. Which, in general, is understandable: it was through “Ukraine” that generous budget funding was distributed in the billions to state and private enterprises every year. So many fought for control of this feeding trough. And so Hetman was killed, and literally at the same time a new head of the main operational department, Alexey Poletukha, appeared at Bank Ukraina. So, he came to this place from the position of director of UkrRos CJSC – when he became a deputy, Satsyuk put him in his chair, and then transferred him to Bank Ukraina. How did he do it? Oh, then Satsyuk was capable of more than that! As soon as Satsyuk and Fedorenko had their own person at Bank Ukraina, they decided to milk this bank thoroughly.

A little background: in 1998, Pustovoitenko’s government had big problems with money, because state-owned enterprises were no longer bringing in the same profits, and the oligarchs’ firms were evading taxes. And Kyiv bowed to the IMF and the World Bank. One of the conditions for the provision of tranches was the sale of a stake in JSCB Ukraina, which belonged to the state. The sale of 12.8% of the bank’s shares began in June 1998, on the Ukrainian Stock Exchange, but for some reason it was never sold. Then, on August 10, 1998, the sale of shares was canceled by acting decrees. Chairman of the State Property Fund Bondar, and on August 12, Chairman of the Board of UkrRos Fedorenko sent an official letter to Prime Minister Pustovoitenko and Deputy Prime Minister Tigipko with a request… to transfer this block of shares to the management of the company UkrRosGazStroy (a subsidiary of UkrRos). The basis was stated to be the threat of acquisition of this block of shares by a “non-resident of Ukraine”. That is, give these shares to us, otherwise foreigners will buy them! Then, on September 4, UkrRosGazStroy sent a letter to the State Property Fund with a proposal to transfer to the company a block of shares in JSCB “Ukraine” as a contribution to the authorized capital of the company, so that the State Property Fund would become a co-founder of UkrRosGazStroy LLC (with the rights of 47% of the company’s shares ).

Let us note that all this began a few days before “Black Monday” (default in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)), which then hit the Ukrainian economy very painfully, causing a powerful economic crisis: banks burst, the hryvnia collapsed, and real estate prices fell significantly. As if the “sugar commandos” knew something. And so on September 22 (the crisis is raging, the hryvnia is falling), by Bondar’s decree, 12.8% of the shares of “Ukraine” are transferred to the authorized capital of “UkrRosGazStroy”.

But the most interesting was yet to come! Because on October 11, the same Bondar signed an order on the withdrawal of the State Property Fund from among the co-founders of UkrRosGazStroy LLC. At the same time, he left a 12.8% stake in Bank Ukraina to the company of Sotsyuk and Fedorenko, asking in return only to pay the cost of the State Property Fund’s share in the capital of UkrRosGazStroy (47%).

Subsequently, it turned out that UkrRosGazStroy paid the Fund 9 million hryvnia for this share, and even that was taken as a loan from Bank Ukraina. Moreover, this loan was not returned – like others taken by companies of the UkrRos holding from this bank. As for the 12.8% stake in Ukraina, the real value of which was several times greater, they migrated into the hands of new owners. They were divided between the scandalous people’s deputy Alexander Volkov (6%), Alexander Skrynnik (4%) and Alla Peshko (2.8%).

Bank Ukraine — From the conclusions of the special commission of the Verkhovna Rada on the case of Bank Ukraina, 2001

In May 1999, a new board of JSCB “Ukraine” was formed, which included the head of the National Bank Yushchenko, the main shareholder of “Ukraine” Volkov, the Minister of Finance Mityukov, the head of the board of JSC “UkrRos” Fedorenko, the president of “UkrRosGazStroy” Goncharov – and they were all chairman unanimously chose Vladimir Satsyuk. Who immediately appointed Poletukha, who was already working at the bank, as his deputy. It was there, back in 1999, that Satsyuk and Yushchenko worked together. For example, solving personnel issues together:

Then the agony of JSCB “Ukraine” began. They decided to use the bank as the main cash office for Leonid Kuchma’s election campaign, and the initiator of this idea was Volkov – and that’s how he got the bank at his disposal. However, under this pretext, the bank was simply looted, one hryvnia went to Kuchma’s interests, and two or three went into the pockets of the scammers. Among them were Vladimir Satsyuk with Poletukha and Fedorenko, who allocated several loans from the funds of JSCB “Ukraine” for their holding company “UkrRos” for a total amount of 31 million US dollars and 21 million hryvnia. The loans were “problematic”, which they then never repaid – after all, Poletukha later became the deputy chairman of the liquidation commission of Bank Ukraina Rusalina. And this is not counting the fact that Satsyuk used the Ukraine Bank in order to buy through it at a preferential rate the dollars allocated for him by the Yushchenko National Bank.

All this ultimately signed the verdict on the bank JSCB Ukraina, which burst immediately after the presidential elections. Why Satsyuk and other “sugar special forces” were put at the head of the bank remains unclear – perhaps because of connections with the family of Tkachenko, who was then the Speaker of the Rada. Yushchenko participated in this, at least at the level of a council member, so he also bore his share of responsibility. But later Yushchenko himself agreed to find and punish all those responsible for the collapse of “Ukraine” – which he never did. Perhaps because he didn’t intend to.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Vladimir Satsyuk: the forgotten “poisoner” of Yushchenko. PART 2

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