Yaroslav Laguta: What is known about the “master of Darnitsa”? PART 1

Kyiv is not only the capital of Ukraine, but also the center of corruption reigning in the country. The lion’s share of all shadow and “sawing” schemes is carried out in the capital, and at different levels of government. At the very bottom of this thieves’ pyramid is the Kyiv City State Administration with the Kyiv City Council and the district administrations of the capital. Every year, their corrupt officials and dishonest businessmen master billions of hryvnias from the capital’s budget, jostling for a place at the trough. All attempts to defeat this corrupt hydra ended in failure at the very beginning. The maximum that threatened another official who stole money was dismissal, and his place was immediately taken by a new “trusted person”.

In November 2019, Yaroslav Laguta, a man who was almost unknown in Kyiv, was appointed acting chairman of the Darnytsia District State Administration. Several of his predecessors were mired in criminal proceedings, and three of them were replaced in less than a year. and theft in the area of ​​budget money through construction and other contracts have already become a bad tradition of Darnitsa. It seemed that a fresh management staff from Zhitomir, where Laguta was deputy head of the regional state administration, would at least stop this process. But this timid hope initially had no chance…

Mom’s insurance companies

Laguta Yaroslav Nikolaevich was born on July 11, 1975 in Zhitomir. After graduating from secondary school No. 12, he entered the Zhitomir Engineering and Technology Institute (now the State University “Zhytomyr Polytechnic”), specializing in “management in the production sector”. However, Yaroslav Laguta never worked in the production sector. But already in his first year at the institute, he began to “work part-time”, and in very good positions. All of them are listed in his official biography, at first glance, it looks ordinary and boring: a typical civil servant career. But the first half of the 90s was not the time when a simple first-year student from the street could get a job as an inspector of a department and deputy director of a regional branch of a private insurance company!

Usually the “secret” of such phenomena are relatives, friends or patrons. Yaroslav Laguta never talked about his parents, his youth, his immediate circle. But journalists still found out some things. For example, that his father worked almost all his life at the Zhitomir Agricultural Institute (now the Poliesie National University). But his mother, Lyudmila Nikolaevna Laguta, having left her job as an accountant in a government agency (details unknown), in 1992-93 became the director of the Zhitomir branch of the closed-type insurance company “ASTRA”, where, in fact, she got her first-year son a job.

Subsequently, ASTRA was closed and re-registered several times due to various violations, during which Lyudmila Laguta was a co-founder of one of its “reincarnations”. After another clone of ASTRA was closed in 2006 by a court decision due to tax violations, Lyudmila Laguta disappeared from the media’s field of vision. According to Skeleton.Info It may have been connected with a certain Ilya Vladimirovich Khromchenkov, who for a quarter of a century was the founder and director of a number of different insurance companies, some of which had the characteristics of enterprises used in shadow schemes.

In 1997, Lyudmila Laguta headed the Zhitomir branch of the insurance company “ASKA”, while working under the leadership of the head of the Kyiv branch, Galina Tretyakova (who is now a “servant of the people”). And she immediately transferred her son to the position of her deputy, with a good salary. Whether Yaroslav Laguta really worked in these insurance companies, or was only listed, receiving a salary, is unknown – he himself, of course, does not admit it …

Also, not without his mother’s help, immediately after graduating from the Zhitomir Polytechnic, Yaroslav Laguta himself began teaching! True, not at his native university, but at the private Institute of Entrepreneurship and Modern Technologies (IPST). Behind this loud signboard was a typical for that time “diploma shop”, opened in the dilapidated building of the former Pervomaysky cinema, and shared it with a pharmacy and some other small firms. But Yaroslav Laguta received fees for his “teaching”, and in the resume of the future official there was an entry that looked quite respectable to people who did not know these details!

“Orange” advertiser Yaroslav Laguta

Since January 2002, Yaroslav Nikolaevich finally broke away from his mother’s insurance companies, went to Kyiv and became the general director of OOO “Prodazh Machine” (EDRPOU 30636566). This company, which was housed in a small office at the address Igorevskaya 1/8, was engaged in “market research” and advertising. Apparently, it was also engaged in political advertising, since Yaroslav Laguta tried to run in the spring elections of 2002 to the Verkhovna Rada in the majoritarian district No. 66 (Zhytomyr region) as a candidate from the “Youth Party” (which then joined the “Our Ukraine” bloc), but received only 0.62%.

After these unsuccessful elections, Laguta quickly changed jobs, and already in June of the same 2002, he headed the SCHOLTZ & FENDZ KYIV (EDRPOU 24578867, renamed to KLINK KRYEYTIV KYIV in 2020). Its beneficiaries are the American businessman Andrew Knight (head of the Atlantic Group, has been involved in advertising and the media market in Ukraine since the mid-90s) and his British partner Stuart David William. It should be noted that during Poroshenko’s time, Knight’s firms received fat multimillion-dollar contracts from the government for social and political advertising. But back then, Scholz & Fends Kyiv was hired not only for advertising, but also for organizing festivals and festive events, including those with political overtones. Coincidence or not, Laguta worked for this firm until the end of 2004 – that is, until the complete victory of the “orange revolution”.

After that, Laguta returned to the small office on Igorevskaya 1/8, where he headed the advertising firm “Orange Ukraine” (32251348), which also worked there, among the co-founders of which were the co-owners of “Sales Machine”. In addition to advertising and “market research”, this firm was also engaged in retail trade. And in 2006, Yaroslav Laguta registered in Zhitomir as an individual entrepreneur with the right to trade from stalls in city markets. It is clear that he did not trade himself, being in Kyiv, but hired low-income residents of Zhitomir as “salesmen”.

Immediately after the early elections of 2007 (another coincidence?) Laguta changed jobs again, and in January 2008 he got a job as an advisor to the director of business development at Smart Communications LLC (34528625). A few months later, Laguta bought out a share in this company and became its co-owner. In fact, he still owns it today, having transferred it to his wife Natalia Vasilievna Laguta (née Kozhara). Moreover, an unclear situation arose with this correspondence. According to Laguta’s declarations, he did this back in 2014, preparing for civil service. However, in September 2016, Zhitomir journalists made an official extract from the open register, in which Yaroslav Laguta was listed as the owner of the company (see document). It turns out that, being a high-ranking official, he violated Ukrainian laws, and even filed an inaccurate declaration?

Judging by similar data from the registers (where the owners are hidden until 2017), one can come to the conclusion that the official Yaroslav Laguta also owned a subsidiary company, the Smart Communications Agency (38150531) and LLC Trading House Yarko (37702184). It is curious that the Agency was eventually registered to a certain Zeynalov Nazir Nadir Ogly, who appears as the founder of many companies with authorized capitals from 50 to 10,000 hryvnia, which should certainly have interested the inspection authorities.

Stolen hospital and orgies in the Regional State Administration

After the split in the “orange” camp, former “Our Ukraine” member Yaroslav Laguta drifted to a new and more promising political force. His choice was influenced by his long-standing acquaintance and business partnership with Rustam Raupov, who owns several advertising and media firms in Zhitomir and Kyiv. In 2010, Raupov, being close to Vitali Klitschko, began creating the Zhitomir regional organization of the UDAR party, which he headed. It was for this party building that Raupov attracted Laguta, who had extensive experience in political advertising. In 2012, they both participated in the parliamentary elections from UDAR. But if Raupov, who received the passing place No. 20 on the party list, was lucky with his mandate, then Laguta, who was No. 55, suffered a setback.

Rustam Raupov in UDAR

As they say, the money was crying – after all, two months before the elections (in August 2012), right from the very beginning of the official election campaign, Yaroslav Laguta suddenly became the head of the “Predslavinsky Parental Charity Fund” (occupying this position to this day). Well, the fact that charitable funds in Ukraine are “election cash desks” and a legal way to bribe voters has long been no secret!

During the events of the winter of 2013-14, Yaroslav Laguta, as the chairman of the regional executive committee of the UDAR party, entered the leadership Zhitomir GO “Maidan”. Which was mainly engaged in “chatter” and was preparing for the redistribution of positions after the change of power. And then Maidan won, then the presidential elections took place, parliamentary elections were approaching – and Laguta was still out of work. Meanwhile, he was eager to get not just a position, but the position of deputy chairman of the regional state administration! And so much so that during the public discussion of his candidacy in August 2014, Laguta made promises local “patriots” that if he was appointed he would work for free until the end of the ATO. It seems that Laguta then still believed in Poroshenko’s thesis that “the ATO will last for hours, not months,” and of course he could not imagine that it would stretch out for years – otherwise he would have had to work for free until now! But, apparently, either the “patriotic public” did not believe Laguta’s promises, or his friend Raupov in Kyiv could not agree on the appointment of his man, because he did not get the desired position soon. In November 2014, Laguta got a job in the Regional State Administration only as an adviser to the patronage service, and only in January 2015, finally, he became deputy chairman of the Zhytomyr Regional State Administration, Serhiy Mashkovsky (who headed Poroshenko’s headquarters in the presidential elections). Mashkovsky is remembered by Zhytomyr residents mainly for scandals: either MThe governor’s AF business, then with your own attempts to set the SBU on and the prosecutor’s office on the media that published anti-corruption revelations.

Mikhail Shpolyansky, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUATION: Yaroslav Laguta: what is known about the “master of Darnitsa”? PART 2

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