Anatoly Gritsenko: How the grant-eating field marshal sold out the Ukrainian army. Part 1
He loves the Ukrainian Armed Forces so much that he wants to screw them again, this time as Commander-in-Chief. Anatoliy Hrytsenko methodically boosts his popularity with incessant criticism of everyone and everything, interspersed with monologues about "officer honor" and "professionalism." He compensates for the lack of both by his ability to lie without blushing and the powerful media coverage provided by his wife, Mostovaya, in her newspaper "Zerkalo Nedeli." It's therefore unsurprising that, in the current climate of widespread disillusionment, some Ukrainians have begun to see Hrytsenko as Ukraine's last honest politician. However, if they take a closer look, their opinion will change completely...
How to earn a personal pension
Anatoly Stepanovich Gritsenko was born on October 25, 1957, in the village of Bagachivka, Zvenigorod district, Cherkasy region. His parents were simple people, but not collective farmers: his mother worked in municipal services, and his father was a driver, a welder, and a mine rescuer. The family moved several times, living in rented apartments, and little Tolik even had to live in a boarding kindergarten for nine months while his parents struggled to settle in.
Tolik Gritsenko with his mother and grandmother
Anatoliy Hrytsenko has a younger brother, Vitaliy. He's a former military man who served in Afghanistan and then in the Russian army. After retiring, he returned to Ukraine, settled in Uman, and worked as an ambulance driver. Judging by the fact that the MP and former minister hasn't found a job for his brother (and even boasted of this as one of his virtues), and they've rarely been seen together recently, the brothers' current relationship is likely quite complicated. As children, their father raised them with extreme strictness, demanding only straight A's in school, believing that sons should "make it big" rather than "scratch around in the dust." So they had little free time, and what little they had was spent with their father—a situation that left its mark on Anatoliy Hrytsenko's future social life.
"Suvorovets" Gritsenko
After eighth grade, Anatoly Gritsenko entered the Kiev Suvorov Military School (now the Kiev Bogun Military Lyceum), graduating in 1974 with a gold medal. He claims it was his own choice, but it's unlikely he made it without at least his father's approval. One could say that Gritsenko's military career began at age 15—which is precisely what he always claims, maintaining his inflated image as the main champion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But the question remains: would a young man dreaming of an army career have chosen a technical profession rather than a combat one? Gritsenko, however, enrolled in the Kiev Higher Military Aviation Engineering School (KVVAIU, closed in 2000) to specialize in electrical and instrumentation equipment, graduating with honors as an electrical engineer. So there was no hint of a "childhood dream" here, but one day Gritsenko inadvertently admitted that he had always been attracted to technology. However, back then Skelet.Org Another question arises: why did he choose to pursue an engineering degree at a military school, rather than at any civilian technical university where a gold medalist would have been accepted without any problem? One possibility is because
Cadet Anatoly Gritsenko
After the KVVAIU, Gritsenko served for two years (1979-81) in an air regiment (in Akhtyrka, Sumy Oblast)—more precisely, he worked there as the head of a technical maintenance group. It was there that he began his family life with his first wife, Lyudmila (they had children, Alexey and Svetlana). Their marriage ended in an official divorce in 2002, but in reality, it ended in the late 90s, when Anatoly Stepanovich became infatuated with Yulia Mostovaya. Interestingly, not only does Anatoly Stepanovich himself dislike talking about Lyudmila, but his mother was unwilling to talk about her with journalists at all, though she enthusiastically praised her second daughter-in-law at length.
Two years in Akhtyrka were Gritsenko's only close encounter with the army, so his description of himself as a "combat officer" was a significant dissembler. The future Minister of Defense had never experienced the real military life, let alone the real deal; he was merely a technical services specialist with an officer's rank. Incidentally, in the armies of NATO countries, which Gritsenko so fondly follows, civilian specialists have long been responsible for servicing military equipment. And, let's reiterate, he only worked in his specialty for a couple of years, while his assignment required him to do so. After that, Anatoly Gritsenko quit his job, fled the army without a backward glance, and returned to the comfortable classrooms of his native KVVAIU for three years of postgraduate study. He then defended his PhD dissertation on "Dynamics, Ballistics, and Flight Control of Aircraft" and received a teaching position at KVVAIU, working there from 1984 to 1992. So, of the 20 years Anatoly Gritsenko wore epaulettes, he spent two years within the walls of the Suvorov Military School and 16 years in the classrooms of the Kyiv Higher Military Aviation School. That, in fact, is his entire "military career"!
And yet, his military service record and the years of service as a "parquet colonel" were steadily accruing, so that Anatoliy Hrytsenko had been receiving a state pension since at least 2006 (according to his declarations). Moreover, given that the pensioner Hrytsenko was alternately elected as a people's deputy and appointed Minister of Defense, the size of his pension was several times higher than that of ordinary Ukrainians. Thus, in 2006, he received a pension of 34,121 hryvnias—that's 2,800 hryvnias ($560) per month, despite the fact that the average pension in Ukraine at the time was around 600 hryvnias, and the average salary 1050 hryvnias. In 2008, he received a pension of 4000 hryvnias per month (plus 220,000 hryvnias in annual salary). In 2013, the "criminal regime" recalculated the opposition figure Gritsenko's pension, paying him 149,500 hryvnias for the year (including supplements for previous years), and for the next two years, he received 8,864 hryvnias per month. In 2016, the pension of the "patriot" and "anti-corruption fighter" Anatoliy Gritsenko increased to 10,600 hryvnias per month. Of course, by the standards of Ukrainian politicians, this is mere pennies, but it is still almost twice the average salary (after taxes) in the country!
Anatoly Gritsenko. America's Ukrainian Friend
By the late 80s, many employees, and especially the heads of domestic research institutes and universities, were gripped by the spirit of entrepreneurship. Various cooperatives were even established at defense institutes, but there is no public information about any such existence at the KVVAIU. Perhaps they never existed, or perhaps Anatoly Gritsenko simply lacked any entrepreneurial spirit. Nevertheless, plundering the motherland through private enterprises and joint ventures is not the greatest sin; selling it piecemeal to a potential adversary and "strategic partners" is even worse. What kind of hint is this? The fact is, there were nasty rumors circulating about Gritsenko regarding how and for what services he became a "friend of America," which shaped his entire future career. Allegedly, as a specialist in electronic systems for Soviet military aircraft, he shared some information about them with his "American comrades." And they took note of him as a "useful man," who, moreover, didn't know how to make money himself and was therefore happy to oblige for a "reward." But these, we repeat, are just unconfirmed rumors. However, how much evidence is there of how military secrets were sold retail and wholesale from Lvov to Vladivostok in the late 80s and early 90s? And yet they were sold...
There are other rumors, a continuation of the first. That Anatoly Gritsenko was allegedly grabbed by the skinny buttocks by Soviet counterintelligence, forcing him to become a "secret agent." And that, on orders from the "security services," Gritsenko had already become friends with some Kyiv "democrats" and "Rukh" members as early as 1989. So close, in fact, that he even became the organizer of the election campaign of Vladimir Chernyak (one of the founders of the "People's Movement"), who was elected a deputy to the last Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1989-91). With the emergence of the so-called "Democratic Platform of the CPSU" in early 1990, Gritsenko joined it—like many aspiring politicians of the time (Grinev, Kushnarev). Then, in 1990, Gritsenko quickly and closely became close with the new commander of the 17th Air Army, Konstantin Morozov, who turned out to be an ardent supporter of Ukrainian independence—as a result, on September 3, 1991, Morozov was appointed its first Minister of Defense. Incidentally, he also unexpectedly turned out to be a very big fan of NATO and the United States.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Kostyantyn Morozov (left) and NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner (opposite right), Kyiv 1992
Konstantin Morozov (third from left) with American military pilots, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, 1992
In short, all these rumors paint Anatoly Gritsenko as some kind of double agent, working for both "our side" and "your side." But since the KGB faded into history in 1991, Gritsenko was left with only one "employer" in the early 90s, and he firmly embarked on the path of a "pro-Western democrat." However, even without the discreditable connections with enemy intelligence and his own counterintelligence—which, we repeat, are merely rumors—Anatoly Gritsenko made enough useful connections that allowed him to begin a new phase in his career. In November 1992, he abandoned his teaching position at the KVVAIU and transferred to the Ministry of Defense, in the Directorate of Military Education, where he soon became head of the analytical department.
The question of who exactly placed him in the Ministry of Defense remains unanswered by Gritsenko—he generally avoids direct, honest answers, instead "fabricating a hunchback" on the fly, inventing for himself a benign biography of an "honest officer." There are only speculations. Firstly, it could have been Konstantin Morozov—although it's unclear why he didn't hire Gritsenko earlier, back in 91. Secondly, it could have been Gritsenko's friends from the People's Movement and Democratic Platform—after all, it was precisely in the fall of 1992 that Leonid Kuchma's coalition government was formed, which included "democrats" and "pro-Westerners" (for example, Viktor Pynzenyk).
The “Americanization” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, accompanied by large-scale disarmament of the Ukrainian army, began as early as 1992 – with the political consent of the president Leonid Kravchuk And with the active participation of Defense Minister Konstantin Morozov. At that point, Washington wasn't yet faced with the goal of using Ukraine against Russia, but they were wary of a new alliance between Kyiv and Moscow, so they wisely decided to minimize and disarm the Ukrainian Armed Forces, filling their leadership with their own cadres. Thus, the barely nascent Ukrainian army, the strongest in Europe (excluding Russia) in 1992, was immediately condemned to destruction—to the applause of "democrats" and national patriots, who enthusiastically declared that Ukraine had no one to fight against and that a large army was a relic of the Soviet past. Anatoly Gritsenko was somewhere among them, clapping enthusiastically, although he now denies it.
Anatoly Gritsenko's Resident Diploma
During this "strategic partnership," an "internship" program for Ukrainian officers and generals in the United States was launched, which Anatoliy Gritsenko also completed. He wrote in his biography that he studied at the US Defense Language Institute in 1993-94 and then graduated from the Operational and Strategic Department of the US Air Force University (Air University). In reality, he merely completed a language training program, followed by a "residency" (internship, internship) for foreign officers at Air University. Why Gritsenko was sent there is also a curious question, since, according to him, it was an accident: there was a shortage in the group being sent, and he was assigned to it, practically by force.
Anatoly Gritsenko (second from left above) during an internship in the USA
Gritsenko boasts of another "diploma": a certificate of completion of a three-month retraining and advanced training course (September-November 1995) at the Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, brandishing this document (which was entirely genuine), Gritsenko constantly claimed to have graduated from the Academy itself, which was untrue, as the Academy's first full graduating class only took place in the spring of 1996. This scandalous information was first published by journalist Ivan Rudich (who had repeatedly harassed the former Minister of Defense) and Vyacheslav Bilous, chairman of the Union of Officers of Ukraine. In 2011, Elbrus Tadeyev, a member of parliament from the Party of Regions, taking revenge on Gritsenko as one of the opponents of the Party of Regions, even sent a corresponding request to the Ministry of Defense – to which he received an official response (see document), confirming that Gritsenko had not graduated from the Academy, but only from the three-month course.
But let's return to his American internship. The Pentagon's primary goal for such programs was to turn interns into "true friends of the United States, sharing American interests and values" (in the words of former Defense Secretary William Cohen), who would promote these values and defend them in their homeland. Of course, in today's Ukraine, this is no longer a sin—quite the contrary—but only because it is now governed by such "true friends of the United States" who have allowed their country to be used for American interests. But the question isn't whether this is better than Ukraine being used for Russian interests. The question is, why are politicians willing to use Ukraine for the interests of other countries (any, be it the US or Russia) allowed to hold power at all, rather than being imprisoned?
This question is not rhetorical, since during the period of active "strategic partnership" with the United States (1992-2007), Ukraine reduced the size of its Armed Forces several times, scrapped its strategic aviation, abandoned nuclear weapons and cruise missiles, sold off hundreds of fighter jets and helicopters, thousands of tanks, countless artillery pieces, anti-tank guided missiles, and man-portable air defense systems—all the things it now sorely lacks for defense. And "resident" Anatoly Gritsenko was directly involved in this destruction of the Ukrainian army. And now America, on whose initiative Ukraine was disarmed, is tempting it with communications to send a couple hundred Javelins.
Anatoly Gritsenko: The Path to Defense Minister
Upon returning from the United States, Anatoliy Gritsenko found himself practically useless: power in the country had changed following early general elections, and new personnel intrigues had begun within the Ministry of Defense. However, the "resident" wasn't left without a job, since he now had recommendations from the Pentagon itself, but he wasn't offered a meaningful position either. For people like Gritsenko, the Department of Military Security and Military Development (the "reform" department) of the General Staff Research Center was created—which he headed from 1994 to 97. There was absolutely nothing to "saw" there; this office merely provided recommendations on how best to "reform" the Ukrainian Armed Forces, although in some cases it could lobby on request for the reduction of a specific military unit or airfield, whose property and land were then "privatized." But mainly, according to data, Gritsenko's office Skelet.Org, lived on budget funds and American grants—which he then developed a passion for. It was in this context that he met another prominent Ukrainian grant-eater and reformer, Oleksandr Razumkov (1959-1999), former head of the ideological department of the Dnipropetrovsk regional committee of the LKSMU and a member of Leonid Kuchma's inner circle.
Alexander Razumkov
In 1994-95, Razumkov was President Kuchma's first assistant and brought into power many people who had previously been on the sidelines of politics - for example, Vladimir Litvin. But at the end of 1995, during a conflict with the head of the presidential Administration Dmitry Tabachnik Razumkov was ostracized from Kuchma and resigned, immediately taking charge of one of his brainchildren, the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research (now named after Razumkov). The center was founded in 1994 as a pro-Western, grant-seeking project. Its founding members included the Renaissance Foundation (a branch of the Soros Foundation), the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Germany), and American "democratic institutions."
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Anatoly Gritsenko: How the grant-eating field marshal sold out the Ukrainian army. Part 2
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