Alexander Petrovsky (Nalekreshvili): the criminal "roof" of Dnipropetrovsk oligarchs. Part 1
What could be worse than a president who took people's hats? Perhaps only the mayor of Ukraine's fourth-largest city, who took lives. Residents of Dnipro, familiar with the true biography of Oleksandr Petrovsky, were shocked by his intention to run in the upcoming elections. After all, beneath the sheepskin of a businessman, philanthropist, and patriotic defender, lies a true crime boss of the 90s, the leader of a still-active organized crime group. His name has repeatedly surfaced in the context of criminal showdowns and high-profile contract killings—which continue to this day.
Alexander Petrovsky. A wonderful Georgian? No, a Georgian Jew!
Alexander Vladimirovich Nalekreshvili was born on June 9, 1972, in the Georgian city of Rustavi. A few years later, his mother divorced and moved with her son to Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro), where they lived at 14-26 Krasnaya Street. She remarried. When he received his passport, Alexander took his stepfather's surname (and possibly patronymic as well), becoming Petrovsky, and requested that his nationality be listed as "Ukrainian." However, his true ethnicity is somewhat different, and has never been publicly disclosed. Firstly, Alexander Nalekreshvili was born not Georgian, but Jewish—which explains why he had to hide his nationality in the near-anti-Semitic atmosphere that reigned in the Ukrainian SSR in the 80s due to the policies of the Communist Party of Ukraine (read more about this in the article). Leonid Kravchuk: The Old Sins of the First President). Secondly, according to unconfirmed reports, he was born not to Ashkenazi Jews (Central and Eastern European Jews), but to Ebraeli Jews—Georgian Jews, a distinct ethnic and cultural group that has lived in the Caucasus since time immemorial (almost all of them have since repatriated). The Ebraeli are somewhat of an outcast among Ashkenazi Jews, and perhaps this could explain why their family lived in poverty in the 80s, even though the Jews of Dnepropetrovsk tried to support each other.
Nevertheless, by now, Alexander Petrovsky has occupied a very significant position in the Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk, and not so much thanks to his generous donations and gifts, but as a long-standing "patron" and "business partner" of the largest oligarch parishioners of the Minora center.
It all began back in the late 1980s. Alexander Petrovsky barely finished eighth grade, but he refused to even consider further education, even vocational school. He was a complete street kid and formed a gang of similarly young thugs who could only achieve their material dreams by embezzling money. It was from them that he got his nickname, "Narik," a misspelling of his childhood surname, the one he used in school and which earned him his initial "neighborhood cred." They "practiced" on their peers, then took on cooperators, somewhat unsuccessfully: Narik was caught, after which, according to sources, Skelet.OrgHe had a rather curious encounter with representatives of a completely unrelated agency, namely the KGB. And an unsmiling man in a formal gray suit suggested that Narik become a "mole" by infiltrating a real "brigade." This was the subject of rumors circulating among the "lads" in Dnipropetrovsk: Nalekreshvili and his "colleague" Gurevich were called "KGB kikes" behind their backs, claiming that they had previously collaborated with the authorities and then had close ties with the "police mafia." Interestingly, these rumors referred specifically to the KGB, not the SBU or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, at the same time, the media named the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OBOP, a colonel and later a major general, as Narik's handler in the 90s. Nicholas Astion.
Perhaps the KGB was somehow involved in the fact that the perfectly healthy (at least physically) Petrovsky-Nalekreshvili was never drafted into the Soviet Army, but instead continued his criminal activities:
- In November 1991, he was convicted of some kind of theft of collective property.
- In December 1991 and February 1992, Alexander Petrovsky extorted 3000 rubles from the director of the Alconit municipal enterprise, I.V. Zaika. Then, in March 1992, he blackmailed him for another 20,000 rubles.
- In April 1992, Alexander Petrovsky raided the Adriatica firm (located at 34 Shevchenko Street). First, he extorted 300 karbovanets from its director, Gurtovoy, then forced him to include O. I. Petrovskaya and V. F. Petrovsky—his mother and stepfather—as employees, then forced him to include himself and his accomplice among the firm's founders.
- In the summer of 1992, Petrovsky fraudulently stole two batches of VAZ cars from the AvtoVAZtekhobsluzhivanie and Spektr companies, which he then sold.
On January 19, 1993, criminal case No. 7005 was opened for all these incidents, and Petrovsky was placed in pretrial detention for several months. Then it... fell apart in court, and Narik was released, as they say, with an unblemished reputation. The reason for this was said to be the intercession of a certain high-ranking official, which confirmed the rumors circulating about Petrovsky. However, this case had two more curious details. First, it involved certain "individuals of Caucasian nationality" who helped Narik intimidate business executives. Meanwhile, a little later, intelligence would surface that Petrovsky-Nalekreshvili enjoyed the patronage of Umar Dzhabrailov, the "overseer" of Chechen organized crime groups in Russia and Ukraine. This led to logical assumptions that Narik had been using the services of Chechens as early as the early 90s. Moreover, the Caucasians were great experts in the wholesale distribution of stolen cars!
Umar Dzhabrailov (left) and Ramzan Kadyrov
Secondly, after Case No. 7005, the 22-year-old racketeer and fraudster Petrovsky, released from prison, suddenly rose to the ranks of Dnipropetrovsk's criminal "authorities." According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, by the mid-90s, his gang consisted of over fifty fighters (including "athletes"). Apparently, this career leap occurred after his time in pretrial detention. The only question is, who contributed most to this—the criminal underworld, Petrovsky's handlers in the law enforcement agencies, or government officials and businessmen who needed him to perform specific services?
Alexander Petrovsky. At the Beginning of "Wet" Work
One of the first such cases was the 1995 murder of Alexander Varenichko, nicknamed Tyson (he ran a boxing club of the same name). According to Dnipropetrovsk residents, Tyson was one of Narik's closest associates; they started out together and even collaborated with the authorities (apparently, half of Narik's group was "slutty"). And then, in the mid-90s, either Tyson suggested to the cops, or the cops suggested to Tyson, that he replace Narik as head of the organized crime group. However, someone in the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed Petrovsky of this, and a few days later, Varenichko was shot dead outside the Poplavok restaurant. His boxing club was later gifted to a young Dnipropetrovsk businessman, Sergei Rybalko, as a token of gratitude for their joint business venture and renamed "Dneprobox."
Sergey Rybalko
Today Sergey Rybalko - owner of the corporation "S.Group", people's deputy and associate Oleg Lyashko, who has been repeatedly implicated in criminal scandals (drug trafficking, tax evasion). Moreover, it has been reported that the trafficking of various substances and drugs (including tramadol and ecstasy) is the very same joint business between Petrovsky and Rybalko.
But let's return to the period 1993-95, when Caucasians played a significant role in the Dnipropetrovsk criminal underworld. This was evident even in Narik's local connections. For example, he maintained a close relationship with Teimuraz Savlokhov (brother of Kyiv "authority" Boris Savlokhov, killed in 2000), who was registered in Dnipropetrovsk and had some dealings there. At the same time, sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded contacts between the Savlokhov brothers' organized crime group and Chechen groups, including "Dudaev's emissaries," with "Savlokha" meeting with the latter organized by the UNA-UNSO leadership (Anatoly Lupynos). And it was precisely in the 90s that the Chechens tried to put down strong roots in Ukraine; they managed to take control of the Kherson Oil Refinery (read more about this in the article Alexander Tretyakov: the hairy hand of two presidents) and almost settled in Odessa (read more about this in the article Eduard Gurvits: the bloody mayor who destroyed Odessa).
Alexander Petrovsky (Nalekreshvili): the criminal "roof" of Dnipropetrovsk oligarchs. Part 1
The names of other "authorities" are less well-known: they were killed during the "great purge" that unfolded in Dnipropetrovsk after the release of the city's longtime criminal "boss," Alexander Milchenko (nicknamed "Matros"). However, the media circulated a theory that all the murders were carried out to eliminate the leaders of the organized crime groups that had proliferated in the city, who refused to submit to the return of Matros. But this was not the case. For example, the murder of Dniprodzerzhynsk "authority" Viktor Bay (who protected the supply and sale of opiates), the Ministry of Internal Affairs believed that his business partner, Vyacheslav Blagov, ordered the hit. The only person influential enough for Blagov to turn to for help was Pavel Lazarenko. The governor of Dnipropetrovsk, for his part, had known Matros since Soviet times and was pleased with his return, hoping to use him for his own ends. So, Lazarenko could have asked Matros to assist in eliminating Bay. But here's the interesting thing: Bay was killed with a Chechen-made assault rifle (in the early 90s, Dudayev's men began producing homemade weapons), and it's highly likely that the killers were of the same origin. So, if the "defunct" Matros did organize a "cleansing" of the city, it wasn't from Chechens, but by their hands? However, Matros's opponents also attacked, ultimately killing the criminal "authorities" Ramzan Molaev (a Chechen) and Guram Papiashvili (a Georgian).
Alexander Milchenko (Sailor)
Petrovsky-Nalekreshvili himself survived the 1996 massacre, although he was the target of an assassination attempt: he was shot with an AK-47 assault rifle by a hitman who then, drunk, threatened the train conductors with a gun and was apprehended (he later died mysteriously in pretrial detention). Judging by his erratic behavior, this hitman was not from a Chechen organized crime group: their men usually "left" accompanied by fellow countrymen and didn't behave in such strange ways during the journey. And given Petrovsky's close ties to Dzhabrailov, it's safe to say that it wasn't Chechens who attempted his assassination, but quite the opposite—those who were being eliminated by the Caucasians and Narik, who worked with them.
However, in 1996, two more murders occurred, which numerous sources Skelet.Org Linked to Alexander Petrovsky. Firstly, it was reported that Pavel Lazarenko, through Matros-Narik's connections, contacted Kushnir's organized crime group, which had committed the murder of Yevgeny Shcherban. However, the fact that Kushnir, and no one else, organized the murder remains unproven – since the arrested Kushnir was immediately strangled in a Donetsk pretrial detention center, and the only living and convicted perpetrator (Muscovite Vadim Bolotskikh) did not know the organizers. Secondly, simultaneously with Shcherban's murder, another incident occurred: on the same day in Moscow, American businessman Paul Tatum – founder and co-owner of the Intourist-RedAmer Hotel (which included the Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel), a business partner of Yevgeny Shcherban and… Umar Dzhabrailov – was shot and killed. That same year, in 1996, a serious property dispute arose between Teytum and Dzhabrailov (who served as the company's deputy general director): Taytum filed a lawsuit in an international court (and Shcherban gave him $600 for legal costs), and Dzhabrailov (according to Taytum) threatened to kill him—which is what happened on November 3, 1996. Why didn't the Ukrainian investigation connect the two murders, but instead began to develop the "Donetsk connection" and then pin the whole affair on Lazarenko alone? The answers are obvious: the link between Shcherban's murder in Donetsk and Teytum's murder in Moscow was Alexander Petrovsky-Nalekreshvili, a "friend of the Chechens" and Dzhabrailov's protégé.
A few more months passed, and Pavlo Lazarenko's star faded in Kyiv, transforming from prime minister to an ordinary (albeit fabulously wealthy) opposition figure. Panic broke out among those associated with him. Oleksandr Milchenko was one of the first to flee Ukraine in November 1997: apparently, the loss of a high-ranking patron greatly frightened the previously dashing Matros. But barely reaching the border, he suddenly died of alleged liver cirrhosis. Although Matros's funeral drew numerous "authoritative figures" from across Ukraine, arriving in two hundred Mercedes and BMWs, Narik did not attend, sparking numerous speculations and rumors. The circumstances of Milchenko's death were so suspicious that in 2012 (15 years later!) his body was exhumed for a poisoning test. However, the results of the test have never been released.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Alexander Petrovsky (Nalekreshvili): the criminal "roof" of Dnipropetrovsk oligarchs. Part 2
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