Just yesterday, omnipotent, they fled quickly and not very beautifully, taking out the loot. What could not be removed immediately was helped by various teams of the new government. But the desire to regain influence at home remains. Today, when the Zaporozhye region received a “yellow” level of terrorist threat, the issue of Artem Pshonka’s influence in the south of the region has become especially acute, reports Anticorrosive.
Feudal Principality of Pshonki
During the time of Yanukovych, Artem Pshonka, son of the then Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka (read more about him in the article Viktor Pshonka: the rise and fall of prosecutor Caesar)successfully entered parliament again in the 2012 elections. A native of Kramatorsk “landed”, with absolute support, from the “Party of Regions” in the Zaporozhye region.
Artem began “seeding” his future plot at the end of 2011, when the contours of the new electoral system were just being outlined. The 81st district of Pshonka included the southwest of the Zaporozhye region – poor and deserted rural areas. Among the seven territories, the largest city was Tokmak with a population of 30 thousand.
In the poor calm of the steppe, the son of the Prosecutor General began to weave his network. Its technologists began to build a system of stable “bait” for all state employees. Teachers, postmen, village council employees, and social workers were integrated into the vertical for elections. In the village, an extra hundred hryvnia, and sometimes a bottle of vodka, means much more than in the city – and people agreed to take food ration money, go to vote and take their families to the polling stations to cast their vote for Artem Pshonka.
Of course, a power vertical was also created under Artem Viktorovich – all officials at all levels told how much such a wonderful candidate does for the community. As a result, the son of the Prosecutor General won a record 65 percent of the vote, in less than a year of “hilling up” the 81st district. Over the next year or so, until the change of power, Pshonka only strengthened his influence in the district. A well-coordinated team of curators constantly worked there, monitoring the formed network – which later turned into a tool for spying on the dissatisfied.
Where to go, where to go?
But the transformation of the 81st district into a feudal inheritance was interrupted by the Maidan and the change of government. Pshonka’s father and son, along with other members of Yanukovych’s team, fled to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). But, to put it mildly, they were not very welcome there – as greedy fools who thwarted Putin (*criminal)’s plans for a “soft” takeover of Ukraine. They say that Vladimir Vladimirovich is the author of the biting phrase: “Yanukovych’s Ukraine was eaten up by the appetites of greedy youths!”
May 2014, A. Pshonka and O. Tsarev, Moscow
Klimenko (Read more: Alexander Klimenko. He flew away, but really wants to return), Kurchenko and other young reformers tried to prove their usefulness and relevance. Money poured into the Zastup party, Dumchev’s movement (Read more: Dumchev. The era of political deja vu in Kyiv)… The guys began to be entrusted with various business schemes for the occupied Donbass.
But Artem Pshonka took a different path. In the offices of the Putin (*criminal) Administration, he began to say that in Ukraine, in his native 81st district, he still had considerable influence, and he was ready to use it – to shake up the situation in the front-line region at the right time. The stories had to be confirmed with something, and the early parliamentary elections came in handy… It was only necessary to find a suitable “tool,” which turned out to be the Berdyansk oligarch Alexander Ponomarev.
I really wanted to expand
Meanwhile, on the eve of early parliamentary elections in 2014, another people’s deputy Alexander Ponomarev quietly left the Party of Regions and in the summer of 2014 joined the parliamentary faction “For Peace and Stability!” This group of ex-regionals who did not go on the run was hastily put together with the money of Kurchenko, a junior business partner of the Pshonka and Yanukovych family.
Ponomarev has long dreamed of becoming the new Rothschild and really wanted to expand his influence under the new government – and he was hooked.
It should be noted that the districts of Ponomarev and Pshonka are not just neighbors, Pshonka actively helped a Berdyansk businessman in 2012-13 to fight off the claims of the “supervisor” for the Zaporozhye region Anisimov, etc.
The connection between the Berdyansk people’s deputy and the son of the Prosecutor General was not interrupted after the revolution, but only strengthened. In September 2014, members of the “For Peace and Stability” faction, still people’s deputies, made a scandalous visit to the Russian State Duma. Officially, Alexander Ponomarev was not with them. But unofficially…
Evil tongues claim that the main subject of conversation with Artem Viktorovich was the upcoming parliamentary elections. Ponomarev was calm about his 78th district with Berdyansk in the center – he managed to find a common language with the new government and prove his loyalty. But I wanted more, and for the 81st district, which remained ownerless, it was advisable to negotiate with representatives of the old government. There, in the “Principality of Pshonka,” Alexander Sergeevich directed his junior business assistant Sergei Valentirov.
But Ponomarev needed a “bonus” to strengthen the “Berdyansk paratrooper,” the absolutely unrated Valentirov, in competition with his opponents there. And such a “bonus” was supposed to be the “net” built by Artem Pshonka and his managers two years ago.
The negotiations are said to have been successful. At the same time, the economic Ponomarev agreed not only on politics, but also on economics. They say that the Berdyansk Harvesters enterprise has begun supplying its agricultural equipment to Belarus and Kazakhstan. Where to transfer the goods to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), to the end consumers, was not at all difficult.
But the increase in supplies began a little later, and immediately after the negotiations in Moscow, Sergei Valentirov had very interesting characters appear at his election headquarters. Valentirov and Ponomarev were taken into account, and interesting things began behind them…
Capital guests in the provinces
Imagine – six poor rural areas, complete villages and towns, a single city – for 30 thousand people. Endless steppe, fried by the sun and slightly salted. And in such areas, people’s deputy of two convocations Yulia Kovalevskaya suddenly appears! Yes, the same Kovalevskaya, who is the godfather of the famous Lukash and Pshonka, noticed in the lists of the “black accounting” of the Party of Regions, and who kept Yanukovych’s cook on her payroll as a fictitious deputy assistant. Oops!
Yulia Kovalevskaya (nee Lyakhovich) is a colorful figure even by the standards of the Party of Regions. A nurse by training, Yu. Kovalevskaya made a rapid career as a party functionary among the regionals, not without the help of the late Prime Minister of Crimea Vasily Dzharty. (It is noteworthy that a whole troop of Dzharta’s associates recently appeared in the executive power system of the Zaporozhye region: Maxim Shishlov, Ekaterina Yurchenko, Sergei Burkhovetsky)
After moving to Kyiv (2006), she twice became a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, worked for A. Klyuev – she was responsible for special information campaigns. In 2011, she joined the inter-factional parliamentary association “Youth Choice” (the “PR” wing) created by the younger Yanukovych and A. Pshonka. And in 2012, with the help of Lukash and Pshonka, she became the head of the training department for party activists and agitators of the Central Office of the Party of Regions.
After the Maidan she did not disappear, but with the help of influential ex-regionals she retained the position of first deputy/acting deputy. The head of the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service Issues – a body that has the authority to conduct an internal audit and investigation of any government body or specific official. They say that Kovalevskaya’s appointment closed the well-prepared corruption scheme “Prosecutor’s Office-SBU-National State Service” to create a “milking” machine from high officials, who were deliberately driven to commit offenses, and then mercilessly extorted” for money.
As we see, Yulia Sergeevna is a difficult person, not very public, and involved in the shady arrangements of the “Family”. A subtle psychologist and manipulator, skilled in intrigue, she can control politicians and also keep many secrets.
Yulia Sergeevna has extensive connections in the Central Election Commission, which allows her to influence the vote counting process. It is noteworthy that her husband Artem Valerievich holds senior positions in DIAD LLC, a confectionery factory that moved after 2014 from Gorlovka to the Penza region of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). And you say – Lipetsk factory, Lipetsk factory.
From time immemorial, Kovalevskaya herself has been involved in controversial political activities. For example, even now he works together with the odious “Ukrainian Choice” of Putin (*criminal)’s godfather Viktor Medvedchuk on behalf of his public organization.
And such a wonderful lady, apparently at the behest of Artem Pshonka, begins work in the fall of 2014 at the election headquarters of a simple candidate from the BPP, Sergei Valentirov.
It’s funny that the public of the Zaporozhye region noticed Yulia Sergeevna only a year later, in the fall of 2015, when Kovalevskaya appeared on the list of the “Opposition Bloc” in the Zaporozhye Regional Council. In the regional center they began to wonder – how did a person with such a biography end up in the Tokmak wilderness and the provincial regional council? And only a few knew that Yulia Sergeevna appeared in this wilderness not by chance and much earlier.
Her company “VIP Consulting” becomes a contractor in Sergei Valentirov’s campaign. Formally, VIP Consulting trains members of election commissions from self-nominated candidate Valentirov. In fact, Yulia Kovalevskaya works as the “key person” to restore and launch the Pshonka network, which has been inactive for more than a year. Training election commissioners is an ideal cover for such work.
Kovalevskaya also brought Tatyana Graban and Natalya Korneichenko with her. Working in Valentirov’s headquarters as managers of VIP Consulting, they then became his full-time assistants in the Verkhovna Rada on a permanent basis… for supervision.
T. Graban
N. Korneychenko
It is noteworthy that on her Facebook page Tatyana Grabar, S. Valentirov’s official assistant, now lists her place of work as an information company in Moscow. Why not?
But even with her faithful assistants from VIP Consulting, Yulia Sergeevna would not have been able to reach every head of the village council and school principal. Yulia Sergeevna gathers the numerous henchmen of Artem Pshonka who remain in the area, arranges a communication session with the “boss in exile,” if necessary, and begins work.
Who ensured Valentirov’s victory?
As a result, the following “verified personnel” of Pshonka Jr. secretly ended up in Valentirov’s campaign:
– his long-time assistant and business partner Lyudmila Lyubim, head of the communal institution “Regional Fund for Support of Individual Housing Construction in Rural Areas” and Pshonka’s fellow countryman, a native of Kramatorsk. As a thank you for all the good things, she and Kovalevskaya will then be given easy access to the regional council in the Tokmak region from the “Opposition Bloc” in the local elections, a year after the parliamentary elections
– the already former lustrated head of the Akimovsky district, Anatoly Blokha, who took part in the collection of construction kickbacks in the Pshonki district.
A. Blokha, L. Lyubim
– Lyubim’s deputy at the municipal institution Anatoly Kazantsev – also a native of Kramatorsk
– former head of the Azov Regional State Administration, now deputy of the regional council Vadim Sukhina
– one of the leaders of the Pshonki charitable foundation and owner of the pharmacy business Oleg Surzhan, whose fraud with the property of the Tokmok community has already been written about. Surzhan was able to “stand out” by squeezing his way into the regional council in this cadence not from the Opposition Bloc, like his fellow regionalists, but from Batkivshchyna.
– former assistant to Artem Pshonka Alexander Verbitsky
– former head of the Veselovskaya Regional State Administration Irina Kukovinets, etc.
Yulia Kovalevskaya built up all these “Pshonkovsky fighters”, and some more, at the headquarters of Sergei Valentirov. And they launched the network, ensuring victory for the unknown Valentirov. It is enough to watch the video that has spread around the country, where, with the wave of a magic wand, the chief doctors allowed distributors of Valentirov’s glasses into hospitals, and local law enforcement officers closed criminal cases, and everything becomes clear. But the sensational mass distribution of points from the candidate was just the tip of the iceberg. Much more “pranks” turned out to be disguised and only echoes reached the regional center.
How many Zaporozhye deputies does Pshonka have in his pocket?
In the history of Pshonka’s relationship with Ponomarev and Valentirov, there is another point that is not entirely clear. Namely, how generously did Artem Viktorovich invest in the 2015 local elections and did he invest? As we wrote earlier, a year ago Alexander Sergeevich Ponomarev carried out a large-scale purchase of “party assets.” Ponomarev’s “portfolio” included “BPP” in his and Valentirovsky districts (and recently the entire region), and “Our Land” with the “Agrarian Party” within the entire region. Then the people’s deputy spent a lot on financing their election campaigns in the region, as well as his political infantry in the local councils of the 78th and 81st districts (12 territories). Well, in his native Berdyansk, having bought victory, Vladimir Chepurny, hastily selected as mayor, and a dozen of his people into the seats of local deputies.
Those who know the cautious and prudent Ponomarev say frankly that spending a lot on politics is completely out of character for him, and he doesn’t have that kind of free money. But the financial potential of Pshonok, father and son, is estimated by experts at one and a half billion US dollars. Maybe Alexander Sergeevich was given cash by the same Artem Pshonka, who helped with the people a year earlier? And what then is the degree of influence of Pshonka in the parties and territories bought up by Ponomarev? If we remember the recent scandal in Kherson with “Our Land”, where curators and funding from the FSB surfaced, then you inevitably begin to wonder – WHOSE money did Ponomarev pour into the election campaign of his parties?
According to rumors, immigrants from Viktor Fedorovich’s team pay an unofficial fee to the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the maintenance of troops in the LDPR. To alleviate the burden on their own budget, they lobby in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the business interests of businessmen located here… for a percentage.
Last year, the media leaked correspondence between Sergei Valentirov and a certain manager from Lukoil (a Russian oil company). The people’s deputy noted the “obligations to customs” in relation to Lukoil. Valentirov-Ponomarev’s company “Agrinol” needs cheap raw materials for their lubricants and oils, as well as markets for finished products. And the fact that the money from these transactions goes to armament on that side of the front doesn’t matter.
And now – very seriously. If you look at the map of the Zaporozhye region, you can see that the districts of Valentirov, Ponomarev and Evgeniy Balitsky, known for his pro-Russian statements, occupy the southern half of the region, adjacent to the Sea of Azov. And they form the very “gate to Crimea” that was talked about so much a year ago and continues to be talked about. A separate article can be written about Evgeny Balitsky, who was also a member of the notorious “Kurchenko” group “For Peace and Stability”, and recently became famous for “picking up” the topic of special status for our region after the SBU crackdown on the “Social Zaporozhye” movement. But the fact that people’s deputies Ponomarev, Valentirov, as well as the regional council deputy Lyudmila Lyubim, whom we mentioned, constantly sit at his events, was said somehow in passing. It’s a pity.
L. Lyubim, E. Balitsky, VR, discussion of special status
If we assume that a year ago Ponomarev took cash for the purchase of parties – Agrarian, “Our Land” and partly the BPP – from Pshonka Jr., then I wonder how many deputies of the regional and district councils Artem Viktorovich has influence on? It turns out that he has only direct associates in the regional council – five (below), four in the Opposition Bloc (Kovalevskaya, Lyubim, Sukhina, Balitsky Sr.) and one in “Batkivshchyna” (Surzhan). Potentially, Pshonka has at his disposal 10 more deputies of the “Our Land” faction, where the “Ponomarevskys” stand out: Sergei Tkachenko (chairman of the budget commission), Alexander Babanin, Oleg Budyansky, Elena Bodasyuk. And also – BPP deputy Artem Popov, also close to Ponomarev. In total, we have 16 “mandates” that Pshonka Jr. can influence. Not bad?! Certainly!
Now let’s add here the regional “BPP” that was recently taken under control. You can also do things with her deputy bayonets.
Self-defense, whose are you?
But political influence in our difficult times is not enough for serious situations – a power resource is also needed. Therefore, Pshonka began to take an active interest in paramilitary formations, which in modern Ukraine would not surprise anyone. And, apparently, this interest led to a “constructive dialogue” with the puppeteers. Now in the south of the region, just in the districts of Valentirov, Ponomarev and Balitsky, all kinds of “self-defense” continue to bloom wildly, often not knowing in whose interests they are working.
Already in April 2015, they staged a demonstrative row in Berdyansk at a local session – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucaQ1W7OYcI. There was no rational meaning in it, but it was more than enough for the picture. A. Ponomarev was behind the raid. In Melitopol, raids by people in camouflage on enterprises and the offices of officials have become regular. The last one. Balitsky’s surname is sometimes heard in incidents.
In Tokmak they are trying to remove the secretary of the city council from the BPP, and then they are creating a nightmare for the local municipal newspaper. The name of Valentirov appears in the organization of raids. And so on.
At the same time, in the regional center in the north of the region, where there are many more hotheads, such excesses do not happen. Moreover, here paramilitary structures are dissolving themselves due to lack of money. In the southern districts of the region, they specially “feed” and from time to time show the desired picture. And who gives them money for offices, gasoline, and salaries? It is obvious that “hackwork”, like the arts we have listed, does not cover the current needs of such structures. And taking into account geography, it seems that the main sponsors of numerous “self-defenses” are Pshonka’s people.
What can happen on “day X”?
It is clear that Artem Pshonka, running around Moscow and puffing out his cheeks, tells much more than his people can do here. It is clear that Ponomarev and Valentirov also expect to do much less than Artem will demand of them at the “hour of reckoning.” Although, nothing prevents Artem Viktorovich from acting bypassing the two people’s deputies, directly giving orders to his well-placed people. And it’s not just VIP-Kovalevskaya. According to rumors, he personally periodically calls Lyubim, Verbitsky, Blokha, Kazantsev and others to ask how things are in the territory, what the electorate is thinking about, how his “successor” is behaving.
So, no one will stop you from using pro-Russian members of the “Pshonkovo network”, recreated for political purposes, to collect information and silent sabotage. Or in order to receive and shelter a group of saboteurs. And certainly no one is stopping Kovalevskaya, Lyubim and other characters from engaging in obvious and not so separatist activities. Theoretically.
For example, now Yulia Kovalevskaya is actively involved in the Women for Peace movement, setting up its local cells in the Valentirova district.
Movement “Women for Peace, in the center – L. Lyubim, Y. Kovalevskaya
Today they gather, drink tea, gossip and talk about health. But tomorrow, in the event of an escalation in the east or, God forbid, a conflict on the southern border, a “peaceful” blocking of columns of military equipment may well begin. Well, we’re like women, we’re like for peace, take your hands off and don’t bother us lying on the asphalt.
And the “self-defense” forces, which are financed by Pshonka, are unlikely to rush to the front as volunteers if the situation worsens. But you’re always welcome to sign up for “protection of strategic facilities.” In order to launch saboteurs at these facilities at the right time.
There are no high motives to be found in Pshonka’s activities. Neither the former district, nor its residents, nor all the Cossacks care about the fugitive people’s deputy. He plays on two fronts. The focus is on business interests, regaining influence here and gaining influence there. By any means – surrendering the district to a representative of the BPP, promoting their people to power under different flags, entering into negotiations with the “damned junta” or blackmail…
It is very difficult to answer the question “How much can Pshonka shake the Zaporozhye region on day X?” And it’s not journalists who should answer it.
In general, it is better to carry out touching preventive work while searching for an answer – so that the prerequisites for such a question do not arise at all.
Read more: Alexander Klimenko. He flew away, but really wants to come back and expand.
Dumchev. The era of political deja vu in Kyiv
Ivan Dezhurny
