Anatoly Denisenko: Secrets of the Kharkiv Masons. Part 1

Anatoly Denisenko: Secrets of the Kharkiv Masons. Part 1

Ukrainian MPs have bribed and cajoled their voters in countless ways! They've handed out buckwheat and sugar, food packages, vodka, and sometimes even cash. Kharkiv construction oligarch and MP Anatoliy Denisenko has a far more original approach: on the eve of Easter, he distributes Easter cakes to residents of his district. But this is hardly a huge burden for a man who, despite owning three dozen companies, declares zero income from them, and annually bills himself half a million hryvnias in financial assistance and compensation. Kharkiv residents should understand that the mask of a pious benefactor is worn by a man who is literally under investigation for his corrupt activities, his involvement in the embezzlement of city land, including public gardens, and the embezzlement of tens of millions of hryvnias from the budget.

Easter cakes for the people by Anatoly Denisenko

Anatoly Denisenko: How a Digger Became an Oligarch

Anatoly Petrovich Denisenko was born on March 10, 1971, in Kharkiv, to a simple working-class family living in a private sector neighborhood in the Kholodnaya Gora neighborhood (Shpakovsky Lane). His most vivid childhood memory is of trying to sell pigeons at the Bird Market with his friends at age 11, only to have their first commercial venture cut short by a schoolteacher. Denisenko, however, never admitted where they got those pigeons. "Caught them in a yard," he claimed in an interview. But whose yard? A neighbor's? After all, a private sector isn't a Khrushchev-era building! Moreover, even schoolchildren understood that selling ordinary rock pigeons, which live in flocks in the wild in cities, was like trying to sell air. So, the obvious conclusion is that young Antoshka and his friends robbed someone's dovecote of pedigree birds. He himself got off with only a slight fright, but his father was deprived of his 13th salary.

As time went on, the maturing Anton no longer "cleaned" just the neighbors' dovecotes. He showed no interest in studying, and saw no future prospects. After 10th grade, Denisenko worked for several months as a lathe operator's apprentice at the Kharkiv Instrument-Making Plant (KhPZ). Then, from 1989 to 1991, his biography includes a two-year break, apparently during his military service. Then, according to him, from 1992 to 1994, Denisenko worked as a laborer at the Industrial enterprise, while simultaneously studying at the Kharkiv Zooveterinary Institute—though not as a proper veterinarian, or even as an animal technician, but as... a manager. And this again raises questions. Firstly, did Anatoly Denisenko really rise to the level of director and co-owner of Kharkiv's largest construction companies from a background of manual labor, literally working as a digger and loader—all through his own labor, without any start-up capital or relevant education? Secondly, why did he enroll in a veterinary school to earn a rather symbolic management diploma? Did his relatives teach there, or were the diplomas cheaper? Clearly, he's not telling the whole story.

But while details of Anatoly Denisenko's real life during the turbulent 1990s and conflict-ridden 2000s remain carefully guarded, available information allows Skelet.Org to identify the group of individuals who helped this humble laborer become Kharkiv's first developer, his former bosses, and his current business partners.

Alexander Stepanovich Shchegolsky is the co-founder and owner of Progress LLC (construction), where Denisenko worked from 1994 to 1998 as a site manager. Hiring a veterinary manager for such a position would have been difficult, even through connections, but there is currently no information about Shchegolsky's family or other connections to Denisenko. Denisenko also had ties to Yevgeny Shakhnenko (who later founded his own Financial and Construction Group LLC) and Gennady Manuilov (his business is now owned by his son and daughter-in-law) through Progress.

Viktor Timofeevich Kulik is the founder and director of the construction company OOO Sital, where Denisenko served as Deputy Director of Production from 1998-99. He is arguably the most important person in Denisenko's career; it was with him that he entered the large construction business—although, again, any family or other connections between them have not yet been disclosed. In the 80s, Kulik headed the Kharkiv Research Institute Voenproekt, under which (and with whose resources) he founded his own company, Sital, in 1991. From 1995 to 1999, it was part of the Progress construction corporation. Their subsequent split, according to rumors, was far from amicable: allegedly, Kulik and Denisenko literally robbed Shchegolsky, who has since retreated to the margins of the construction business. It should be emphasized that at the same time, mass privatization of state-owned construction enterprises (including four city construction and assembly departments) was actively underway in Kharkov, with their property passing into the hands of new construction magnates.

Victor Kulik

Having separated from Shchegolsky's Progress and taken over the privatized enterprises, Sital in 1999 transformed itself into Spetsstroymontazh Closed Joint-Stock Company (AOZT)—one of the largest construction companies in Kharkiv, which also received orders from other regions of Ukraine (Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, and Kryvyi Rih). Initially, the company focused on industrial facilities and shopping centers, but later expanded into commercial housing. And the Avantage Investment and Construction Company, founded by Kulik in 1998 and taking over the privatized construction equipment, became part of the Spetsstroymontazh corporation. Several more subsidiaries were subsequently created, bearing the names Spetsstroymontazh and Avantage, sometimes owning each other through complex arrangements, sometimes serving as contractors for each other—for example, Spetsstroymontazh-Inter LLC (see screenshot). To date, Viktor Kulik and his wife Lyudmila Kulik are the main partners of Anatoly Denisenko; together, they own many companies that grew out of AOZT Spetsstroimontazh.

Anatoly Denisenko: Secrets of the Kharkiv Masons. Part 1

Leonid Zakharovich Krivochuprin is another associate of Denisenko and the Kulikov couple, but his stake in their companies typically ranges from 7% to 13%. Krivochuprin and Denisenko periodically headed one or another of the companies created by the Spetsstroimontazh corporation, while Kulik preferred to remain in the shadows, serving only as a member of supervisory boards and president of associations.

This is how Anatoly Denisenko moved from one leadership position to another. From 1999 to 2003, he was the director of Spetsstroimontazh CJSC, then its general director for another year; from 2004 to 2007, he was the president of Avantage Financial Company PJSC; and from 2008 to 2012, he was the president of Avantage Investment and Construction Corporation OJSC. Following his election as a people's deputy of the Verkhovna Rada in 2012 (single-mandate constituency No. 173, Kharkiv), and then re-election in 2014, Anatoly Denisenko formally "retired" - however, he continues to own and effectively manage his business, as well as lobby for its interests. According to his 2017 asset declaration, People's Deputy Anatoly Denisenko is the owner of:

• · DAP Investments Limited (Cyprus), a subsidiary of this offshore company in Kharkov, is owned by Stanislav Kievets, another partner of Denisenko and Kulik in the corporation "Spetsstroimontazh".
• Symanticus Holdings Limited (Cyprus)
• Avantazh Bud Holding Limited (Cyprus)
• · AP Avantazh Investments Public Limited (Cyprus, like other offshore companies, is used to reduce tax payments to the Ukrainian budget.
• · OBM CAMPANY LTD
• · Violent-Invest LLC (co-owner Igor Dmitriev, 20%)
• · LLC "U.S.K." (co-owners Lyudmila Kulik and Leonid Krivochuprin)
• · OOO SSM-Invest (and 6 other co-owners)
• · OOO Spetsstroimontazh-Inter
• · LLC "Spetsstroimontazh-Invest"
• · LLC "Spetsstroymontazh-Ukraine"
• · LLC "Spetsstroimontazh-Zhilstroy"
• · LLC "Tartufo" (the company of Denisenko's wife, Victoria Lvovna).
• · PJSC "ISK "Avantage" (jointly with Lyudmila Kulik, the company's capital is more than 100 million hryvnias)
• · PJSC "Financial Company "Avantage" (the company is fully registered in the offshore AP AVANTAZH INVESTMENTS PUBLIC LIMITED)
• · Investment Group "Avantage Capital" (a firm for dubious financial transactions)
• · OOO Impulsprommerezha (through Spetsstroimontazh-Invest)
• · Blaze-Invest LLC (through Avantage structures, capital 38 million hryvnia)
• · LLC "Olimp-2" (through DAP Investments Limited)
• · LLC “Asset Management Company “Avantage Capital Management” (capital over 20 million hryvnias)
• · Trading House "S.K.S.M." (jointly with Lyudmila Kulik)
• · ChP "ASS-Security" (a private security company established in the 90s)
• Avantage Property LLC (through offshore DAP Investments Limited)
• · OBM CAMPANY LTD
• · OOO Spetsstroimontazhprom (jointly with Lyudmila Kulik)
• · Uman-Karyer LLC
• · LLC "Limb-Kharkiv"
• · Ares LLC
• · LLC "Spetsagrodar" (agricultural company in the Chernihiv region, jointly with Natalia Chirva)
• · Artemovskie Zori LLC (an agricultural company in the Kharkiv region, jointly with Natalia Chirva)

This list does not include several other companies that Anatoliy Denisenko owned (or still owns), including: Areal-Service LLC, Kharkiv Dairy Plant, OBM Company, Avantage-Remi, Strykha LLC (created by Kulik and Denisenko in Kirovograd), and a number of others.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org

CONTINUED: Anatoly Denisenko: Secrets of the Kharkiv Masons. PART 2

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