Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer

Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer

Recently, there have been frequent reports of PrivatBank's possible bankruptcy. However, Ukraine's banking system is in crisis overall. This crisis also threatens the second-largest bank, the state-owned Oschadbank. However, officials are doing their best to downplay the possibility of a default by this largest bank.

This bank is where all the "Chernobyl," "resettlement," and other benefits are stored. This means that if Oschadbank collapses, it will be the most vulnerable segments of the population that will suffer. Oschadbank also provides loans to state-owned enterprises, from Ukrnafta to Ukrzaliznytsia. Recently, the bank provided loans to the state-owned enterprise Energorynok, which we wrote aboutAnd the collapse of this bank will essentially paralyze Ukraine's entire infrastructure. So what, you say? What do I care about a state-owned bank and state problems? The fact is, if they bail out Oschadbank, it will be at our expense. So, the collapse of PrivatBank is the personal business of Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov.Read more about it in the article Gennady Bogolyubov: What Privat's other half is keeping quiet about?). They will bail it out of default at their own expense. And Oschadbank's rescue will be carried out with taxpayers' money. That is, we will be the ones paying for Andriy Pyshnyy's extremely poor management. But maybe they'll just let him drown? They won't. Especially after the Verkhovna Rada refused to dismiss Yatsenyuk. But to understand why, we need to take a closer look at Oschadbank's head, Andriy Grigoryevich Pyshnyy. He is the godfather of the aforementioned Arseniy Petrovich, who... He likes to place his people in key positions, which we also wrote about..

Both Pyshnyy and Yatsenyuk hail from Chernivtsi. In fact, they were practically classmates, having both studied at Chernivtsi University at the same time. It's unclear whether they were friends or just acquaintances, but their fathers were. Yatsenyuk's father was the dean of the university where they studied, and Pyshnyy's father was the head of a local prison colony. So, both of them came from fairly educated families. It was Pyshnyy's father who introduced Yatsenyuk's father to the man who would serve as the young men's guide into the world of big politics. This man's name was Igor Pluzhnikov. He was an oligarch, one of the founders of the SDPU(o), an ally of Viktor Medvedchuk, and the creator of the main propaganda and manipulation machine of those years—the Inter TV channel. It was he who patronized the then young Arseniy and Andriy. This is by the way, about the fact that young people who are not tainted by the old schemes, as Yatsenyuk and Pyshny like to position themselves, have come to power.

Igor Pluzhnikov

While the Social Democrats were strong and in power, young people hung around in commercial banks and in senior positions at state-owned banks. Fortunately, their parents' connections made it easy to find them easy, lucrative jobs. But then came the Orange Revolution, and it became necessary to replace some of the odious figures with young, fresh faces. In other words, those who plundered the country under Leonid Kuchma didn't disappear; they simply pulled their protégés off the bench and inducted them into the corridors of power, ensuring a strong starting point.

Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer

Thus, Arseniy Yatsenyuk became acting chairman of the National Bank, and Andriy Pyshnyy moved from his position as deputy chairman of the board of Oschadbank to the position of acting chairman of Oschadbank. This happened in December 2004, practically simultaneously with the resignation of President Kuchma and the ascension of Viktor Yushchenko to the post. This wasn't difficult for Pluzhnikov, who himself was no small figure in the country's banking system; he had once served on the board of the National Bank and was deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Oschadbank. But in 2005, Ihor Pluzhnikov died, and the wunderkinds from Chernivtsi were left to rely only on each other. Incidentally, to gain this position, Pyshnyy resorted to outright fraud. In 2004, he bought the rector of the Institute of Modern Knowledge, Viktor Vasilenko. a fictitious certificate stating that he graduated from this educational institution, which we wrote about earlierHe needed this to immediately enroll in the fourth year of the Ukrainian Academy of Banking under the National Bank. Without this academy, he had no chance of becoming the chairman of the state bank.

Andrey Pyshny

2004-2005 were a golden age for the entire Ukrainian banking market. Loans were taken out in huge quantities, and people eagerly opened deposit accounts. But not for Oschadbank. Once the only state-owned bank with a wide retail network, it was rapidly losing ground. Pensioners who had been served by Oschadbank since the Soviet era were transferring their pensions to the rapidly expanding networks of PrivatBank, Pravex, Nadra, and other smaller banks. Salary plans, including those of state-owned enterprises, were also transferred. The reasons for this were poor service, incompetent employees from cashiers to senior management, inflexible bonus and interest systems, and often their complete absence. This clearly characterizes Andriy Pyshnyy as a manager. Incidentally, Oschadbank has yet to overcome these "ills." Although it has developed a semblance of a marketing strategy and even the now-fashionable hashtags— #MyBankMyKraina и #ощадбанкдієBut maybe it's not the beds that need to be changed, as the old joke goes?

Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer

Andrey Grigoryevich doesn't forget himself either. While still in office, he took out a loan of three and a half million... from himself, that same Oschadbank. Clearly, he took it on favorable terms. But he went further—he still hasn't repaid the loan. This was fraught with problems, especially since his rival, Anatoly Gulei, a man of the brothers, took over the state bank's leadership. Andrey and Sergey Klyuev, who made this information public. But Pyshnyy, with the support of that same Yatsenyuk, was "promoted" to the National Security and Defense Council as the curator of Ukraine's financial sector, and apparently that's why Guley decided not to associate with him.

Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer

However, in 2008-2009, a dark streak began in the lives of Yatsenyuk and Pyshnyy. First, Arseniy Petrovich was removed from his post as Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. Then Andriy Grigoryevich was asked to leave the National Security and Defense Council. They decided to enter politics. This is how the "Front for Change" was born. Arseniy Yatsenyuk became the party's leader and frontman, and Andriy Pyshnyy became, in effect, his right-hand man. The friends successfully… failed the 2010 elections, despite investing 60-70 million dollars in them. Everyone remembers the unexpectedly "militarized" Arseniy Petrovich, who was plastered across cities and highways (a "brilliant" design by renowned Russian designer Artemy Lebedev). The party's patronage, Kateryna Chumachenko-Yushchenko, didn't help either. By the 2012 elections, the "Front for Change" was forced to retreat entirely under the Batkivshchyna umbrella. What also played into their hands was the fact that Yulia Tymoshenko She ended up in pretrial detention, and then in prison. Thus, Yatsenyuk became the frontman of the so-called "United Opposition," while Pyshnyy became deputy chairman of the campaign headquarters. After entering parliament, he assumed the informal position of head of the "Yatsenyuk group" within this very opposition. He held this position throughout Yanukovych's presidency. According to those in the know, he never repaid the loan to Oschadbank, but he was protected by parliamentary immunity.

During the Euromaidan, Arseniy Petrovich actively spoke on stage, promising the people a "slug in the forehead." Andriy Grigorievich stood by his side and provided legal support—for example, writing letters to Popov in which he described the rallies and barricades as an open-ended meeting between the people and the deputies. In short, he, as an experienced bureaucrat, tried to bring the revolution into some kind of legal framework and thus lead it, at least formally. He tried to stir up the Euromaidan in Kherson, though without much success. Once, he tried to approach the barricades, but was immediately hit in the head with a baton by the police. He posed for a while for journalists with a bandaged head and then didn't go back to the barricades.

After Euromaidan, Andriy Grigorievich's career took off. Along with Arseniy Petrovich's, of course. He immediately became the chairman of the board of Oschadbank, without any "acting" title. But after a while, he became embroiled in a corruption scandal. The Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against him. Pyshnyy had flown to a Sevilla-Dnipro match, and the trip cost 500 hryvnias, which investigators believed he had taken from Oschadbank accounts. To cover up the matter, his lawyers claimed that Igor Yeremeyev had provided the money and presented a certificate supposedly proving that Yeremeyev had indeed withdrawn it from the account. But investigators immediately wondered: for what services was the oligarch taking the official to the football match? However, the case was quietly hushed up.

Anti-terrorist operation (ATO) participants also had questions for Andrei Grigorievich. The fact is that Oschadbank operated in the occupied territories of the DPR and LPR until the very end, long after other banks had already closed their branches. In other words, it essentially financed the separatists, allowing them to transfer funds. It was only under public pressure, following pickets outside the bank's head office on Gospitalnaya Street, under the slogan "A lavish sendoff for a flamboyant godfather," that it closed its branches.

It was under Andriy Pyshnyy's leadership that Oschadbank suffered its worst decline. One could, of course, argue that the country is in crisis and the banks are struggling. But for some reason, the major banks are still afloat. Some have even grown slightly over the years. Oschadbank, however, is in decline—it lost 8,6 billion (!) hryvnias in 2014. By comparison, under its previous leader, Serhiy Podrezov, it earned 678,8 million hryvnias in profit in 2013 alone. In early 2015, Moody's downgraded its credit and debt ratings from Ca to Caa3 with a negative outlook, a dramatic drop of several notches. Fitch, another rating agency, downgraded Oschadbank from CC (possible default) to CCC (high probability of default).

By the summer of 2015, Fitch itself declared that Oschadbank's default on its Eurobonds was inevitable sooner or later. The bank proudly claims that its loan portfolio has grown from 67,4 billion hryvnias to 92,2 billion since 2012. But these are mostly loans to state-owned entities – Naftogaz, Energoatom, Ukraziliznytsia, Ukravtodor, and others. Essentially, the state is lending to itself. But it's lending real money, which then disappears, leaving Oschadbank with government-guaranteed debts. The state pumps money back into the bank, and the cycle continues. And the central figure in this siphoning of our taxpayers' money into the pockets of those in power is Andriy Pyshnyy. And until September 2016, that is, until parliament gains the right to once again demand the resignation of his godfather, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, from the post of prime minister, he will definitely remain in his place.

Andriy Pyshnyy near Oschadbank

This year, the Ministry of Finance ordered Oschadbank to break even. If this could be done by decree, everything would be fine. But the market is the market, and those who break even are those who attract new clients, innovative products, develop sound marketing strategies—in short, those who work. Which, as we understand, is impossible under the current leadership. This means that this "break-even" will have to be achieved by forcibly "driving" budgetary organizations into it, artificially creating monopolistic services (such as payments for extracts from the state registry or state mortgages), and constant refinancing. And by 2020, they want to sell it. Well, the state has no need for such a sluggish financial monster. So the decision is correct. If, of course, anyone is willing to buy it by then.

Denis Ivanov, for Skelet.Org

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