Anton Yatsenko: the history of the tender combiner
Ostap Bender knew 400 relatively legal ways to extort money. Anton Yatsenko and his partners needed just one to turn first the tender procurement system, then the electronic tax reporting system, and then the real estate appraisal market into their own golden failure. These scams brought in billions, fabulously enriching everyone involved. Meanwhile, the participants in these schemes continue to be elected to parliament, hold leadership positions, and engage in economic activity. It seems that nothing has changed in the country after either the first or second Maidan...
Anton Yatsenko. "Union of Sword and Plowshare"
Yatsenko's appearance in the corridors of the Verkhovna Rada was somewhat akin to Ostap Ibrahimovic's appearance before the most respected people of Starogorod—but the role of the "powerful old man close to the emperor" was apparently played by Vasyl Tsushko. Jokes aside, practically nothing is known about our hero's past, which is more than a little odd! After all, the Ukrainian government doesn't let just anyone into its offices—unless you're a finalist in a regional beauty pageant. And it certainly doesn't engage in big business in equal partnership with young men who don't have influential and wealthy relatives behind them. Which begs the question: who exactly is Anton Yatsenko?
Yatsenko Anton Vladimirovich He was born on July 13, 1977, in Kyiv—that's his entire public biography! His father, Vladimir Porfiryevich Yatsenko, is also unknown, except that he is a co-owner of his son's business. This means that during the late socialist era and the 90s, Vladimir Porfiryevich could have been anyone, even a Turkish citizen—we'll never know, nor will we know the reasons for his secrecy.
Anton Yatsenko in his youth
And so it is 1998, when 21-year-old Anton Yatsenko, having successfully dodged military service, graduates from the Kyiv Institute of Economics and Management (EKOMEN). It's a fascinating institution: one of the first Ukrainian private universities where you can earn a bachelor's degree in economics in four years, without much effort. But while Kyiv's EKOMEN can be considered a more or less passable forge of accounting talent, for residents of the provinces it is known as one of those "basement universities," as its branches were opened in whatever rented premises could be found: a vocational school dormitory, a closed club, a wing of the academic building of a mechanical engineering college. It often depended on who exactly opened the branch under the "license" purchased from EKOMEN's Kyiv office: the college's caretaker or the physical education teacher of a vocational school.
In the Ukrainian hinterland of the 90s, all these private educational institutions often looked like parodies and were perceived by the local population as shops "selling" diplomas. Moreover, EKOMEN was ranked lower by all parameters than the notorious MAUP – and tuition there was cheaper.
So, while MAUP was where local businessmen and executive committee officials (and their children) received their higher education in economics or law, young people from more modest families went to EKOMEN to obtain their accounting degrees. While they didn't provide in-depth knowledge of economics, they did teach them how to understand tax reporting. Even today, judging by numerous reviews, EKOMEN graduates have slim chances of getting jobs in large companies or government agencies—employers look askance at their credentials. Therefore, it's all the more surprising that after graduating from EKOMEN, Anton Yatsenko landed a job straight in the Verkhovna Rada staff. It seems likely that someone's patronage or a major "slip" was involved!
But more than 800 people worked in the Apparatus at that time (now over 1100, as I found out Skelet.Org), and many of them meekly pore over regulations and analytical reports until retirement. Anton Yatsenko managed to escape this morass within his first few months, becoming an assistant and consultant to MP Vasyl Tsushko. Who recruited whom will remain unknown, but it was through Tsushko that the "young specialist" Yatsenko was able to meet a host of people he needed and also get his first taste of tenders.
Vasily Tsushko
Tsushko was a direct path to meeting his comrade from the Peasant Party, Oleksandr Tkachenko, who served as Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada from July 1998 to January 2000. There is information that Yatsenko even worked briefly in his Secretariat (this service is also part of the Verkhovna Rada Apparatus). It is possible that through Tsushko and Tkachenko, he met such an important figure as Serhiy Osyka, who served as Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade from 1994 to 99 and was implicated in numerous strategically significant corruption schemes. Osyka was widely considered the mastermind behind the tender scam, and his close collaboration with Yatsenko continued afterwards. Incidentally, from 2006 to 2010, at the height of the tender scandal, Osyka and Yatsenko served together as members of the BYuT faction. However, the number of participants in the tender schemes was far greater…
Vadim Rabinovich, Sergey Osyka and Mikhail Brodsky,
dashing 90
Tender combination: start
So, Anton Yatsenko's first encounter with tender procurement occurred back in 1999, during the drafting of the relevant bill—a bill drafted, among others, by Vasyl Tsushko. Yatsenko, running around the Rada with drafts of the bill, immediately realized he had a gold mine on his hands, one that could generate profits no less than a metallurgical plant or a gas scheme. A scandal subsequently erupted: it was reported that unauthorized changes had been made to the bill, enabling tender scams. However, it was never definitively determined who exactly did this: Tsushko, the man responsible for the bill, whose signatures were endorsed on every page of the document, or Anton Yatsenko, who forged them. In essence, the scandal erupted and fizzled, like many others associated with Yatsenko.
And so, in 2000, two legal entities were registered that would later play a key role in the creation of the tender schemes. First, there was the European Consulting Agencies LLC, registered on October 18, 2000 (IC 31172276). Among its founders, in addition to Anton Yatsenko and Vladimir Vrublevsky (a friend of the Yatsenko family), were the names of Yevhen Kalny (son of Nadezhda Obushko, then head of the State Procurement Department at the Ministry of Economy), Viktor Miroshnichenko (deputy head of the State Procurement Department at the Ministry of Health of Ukraine), and a certain Frenchman, Rémi Robert Duflot (allegedly a member of the supervisory board of VABank). Second, there was the public organization "Center for Tender Procedures and Business Planning," registered on November 29, 2000, founded by Viktor Miroshnichenko, Anton Yatsenko, and Vladimir Vrublevsky.
The story continued in 2002, when Anton Yatsenko had already risen through the ranks to head the "Information and Analysis Department of the Department of Socio-Political Issues of the Main Directorate for Domestic Policy in the Presidential Administration of Ukraine." This is an interesting moment in the life of our hero! The fact is that in early 2000, a "right-wing coup" (orchestrated under the new Prime Minister Yushchenko) occurred in the Rada, and the left lost their seats. And then Anton Yatsenko abandoned the "villagers" Vasyl Tsushko and Oleksandr Tkachenko, and flew to the Presidential Administration, which he headed in November 1999. Vladimir Litvin So, prior to this, Lytvyn had worked as the president's aide for domestic policy, and then headed that department in the Administration—meaning Lytvyn effectively hired Yatsenko back into his old position. Why this? Simultaneously, between 2000 and 2002, Anton Yatsenko earned a second law degree from the Kyiv National University of Economics (KNEU). And at the same time, Anton Yatsenko's tender scheme began operating, providing him with a stable, colossal income.
This began during the government of Anatoly Kinakh. On May 31, 2002, an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Economy and the public organization "Center for Tender Procedures" (signed by Deputy Minister Valery Zubarev), under which the Center would receive the rights to develop sample tender documentation, which it would then provide to the ministry free of charge. However, this agreement was a scam, since by that time all the necessary documentation had not only already been developed by Yatsenko's team, but also... privatized.
It appears that the essence of this agreement was merely to legalize the scheme being prepared and put it into effect.
In August 2002, Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Seminozhenko sent a notice to executive authorities demanding that they "pay due attention to the issue of concluding appropriate licensing agreements between customers and the Center for Tender Procedures or engage it in joint work." And in November 2002, the Yanukovych-Azarov government received a notification from the Center for Tender Procedures and Business Planning. He reported that citizens Anton Yatsenko and Vladimir Vrublevsky are the copyright holders of the "Sample Tender Documentation" (certificate PA No. 5086 dated January 17, 2002), the "Methodology for Evaluating Tender Proposals" (certificate No. 6443 dated October 22, 2002), and the "Methodology for Verifying Customers' Compliance with Current Legislation in the Procurement of Goods, Works, and Services at Public Expenses" (certificate No. 6443 dated August 14, 2002). In connection with this, the government was warned that tender procurement should be carried out exclusively using these "developments": firstly, this would supposedly allow the state budget to save up to 1 billion hryvnia annually, and secondly, this is a requirement of copyright law.
In response to these brazen scoundrels, a Justice Ministry commission and an SBU investigative team were dispatched, uncovering a blatant scam. First, the patented "developments" turned out to be parts of the Ukrainian law on tender procurement—which Vasyl Tsushko and Anton Yatsenko had been working on. It turned out that the latter had simply "privatized" the law (!) and its appendices, declaring them his "intellectual property"—and was profiting handsomely from this by selling "official contract" forms to tender participants. The cost of a set of forms ranged from 350 to 10 hryvnias (US$2000 at the exchange rate at the time), despite the fact that tens of thousands of tenders were conducted in the country each year! In other words, Anton Yatsenko had successfully implemented a popular paid services scheme in tender bidding, securing it as his own intellectual property. So much for the failure! But the schemer's plans didn't stop there: he planned to make big money through "chess lectures"—or rather, paid seminars for officials participating in tenders. The cost of attending these seminars reached 950 hryvnias per participant.
The "Fathers" of the Party of Regions: Petro Poroshenko and Mykola Azarov
Surprisingly, the brazen thugs weren't jailed, nor even given a slap on the wrist. Moreover, a few months later, Anton Yatsenko became... an assistant to the First Deputy Prime Minister. Mykola Azarov! Apparently, Nikolai Yanovich assessed the potential of this scam very positively (for himself). As for the results of the investigation, they were simply shelved—if not thrown in the trash. And somehow, it's not surprising that the investigation was overseen by the then deputy head of the SBU's Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime. Andrey Kozhemyakin – Yatsenko's future ally in the BYuT parliamentary faction (2007-2010). According to some reports, another future BYuT member, Serhiy Osyka, was also involved, then a United Ukraine MP and a member of the Legal Policy Committee. Although there is no evidence of Osyka's direct involvement in these schemes, he was named as one of their patrons. Sources reported that part of the proceeds from the sales of the forms were simply transferred through other schemes to the accounts of high-ranking officials' companies – possibly also under the guise of payment for expensive services.
Andrey Kozhemyakin, Sergey Osyka, Anton Yatsenko:
comrades in the BYuT faction in the Verkhovna Rada of the 6th convocation
The scam involved a broader range of actors. The "services" were provided through two commercial firms: the Center for Tender Procedures LLC, established on January 24, 2001 (founded by Anton Yatsenko's father and wife) and the European Consulting Agencies LLC. The Center for Tender Procedures LLC also had numerous cloned subsidiaries, ranging from the Center for Tender Procedures of Ukraine LLC (established on July 9, 2002, by Vladimir Porfiryevich Yatsenko and Vladimir Vrublevsky) to the Interregional Center for Tender Procedures. Furthermore, the All-Ukrainian Training Center LLC and the Institute for Public Procurement LLC were created, tasked with conducting the aforementioned paid seminars and "training courses." To ensure the successful operation of the system, in 2004 the pro-presidential parliamentary majority adopted amendments to the law granting the Center for Tender Procedures public organization the powers of a state governing body.
Encouraged, Anton Yatsenko streamlined his business and began selling documentation online: pay, download, and print! This eliminated the need to print forms at a printing house, distribute them throughout Ukraine, and manage their distribution.
Also in 2004, Anton Yatsenko and his colleagues decided to expand their patented "intellectual property" base and registered five more "inventions." This, in turn, allowed them to collect new "royalties" for the following operations and services:
* “Method for automated production of state purchases, goods, work and services” - patent No. 61042 dated February 16, 2004
* “Method of processing information during trading” - patent No. 61043 dated February 16, 2004
* “Method of creating electronic purchases for state funds” - patent No. 62907 dated March 15, 2004.
* “The process of transformation of data with electronically posted, posted, periodically updated documents for the procurement of goods, work and services” - patent No. 70907 dated October 15, 2004.
* “The process of transformation of data during the transformation of electronic document management for the purpose of purchasing goods, work and services” - patent No. 70908 dated October 15, 2004.
Anton Yatsenko: the history of the tender combiner
Interestingly, during this period of the tender schemes' operation, their defenders included SDPU (o) MP Oleh Lukashuk (who defected to the BYuT in 2005) and Our Ukraine MP Volodymyr Stretovich. Both men made their mark in 2003, when they bombarded government agencies and prosecutors with letters demanding that they respect the intellectual property rights of the "Center for Tender Procedures"—that is, Anton Yatsenko. Thus, the latter had powerful support in his plan to usurp the monopoly on all necessary tender documentation. After all, it's worth remembering that Volodymyr Stretovich at the time had an image not only of an "honest oppositionist" but also of a tireless fighter against corruption (he headed the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Corruption in Law Enforcement Agencies), so his "roof" reliably protected him from all suspicion.
Success in the tender business also contributed to Yatsenko's further advancement as an economist. In 2003, he received a PhD in economics from KNEU, and in 2004, he was appointed vice-rector of EKOMEN, another lucrative commercial project from which he himself had left several years earlier.
Anton Yatsenko. Tender Combination: Continued
The "Orange Revolution" failed to destroy the tendering schemes. The voices of the few deputies from Yushchenko's entourage who tried to abolish this corrupt monopoly fell on deaf ears. On the contrary, the tendering schemes (like other gas schemes) were taken under the new government's wing, becoming even more profitable, and their "operators" completely losing all semblance of fear and decency.
Anton Yatsenko and his business partners managed to establish contacts with the new government just as quickly as they had become Azarov's best friends two years earlier. Moreover, Yatsenko had many mutual acquaintances among the "orange" ranks. Firstly, the socialists who had sided with Yushchenko, among whom his first "mentor," Vasyl Tsushko, loomed large. And secondly, Andriy Kozhemyakin, who in April 2005 became the head of the SBU's Main Directorate for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime and the deputy head of the SBU for operational issues. The head of the Service at the time was Alexander TurchinovAnd soon Turchynov would declare that "Yatsenko is one of the talented young scientists" and would stand by him like a rock. Thus began the formation of the so-called "Ukrainian tender mafia," in which representatives of various political groups had already taken part.
On April 19, 2005, the public organization "Tender Chamber of Ukraine" was registered, replacing the former "Center for Tender Procedures." Its founders were the "Association for Assistance in the Fight against Corruption" (Tetiana Berezhnaya) and the "Center for the Development of Antimonopoly Law and Competition" (Svetlana Legoyda), and its chairman was Oleh Fadeyev, Anton Yatsenko's cousin. On June 16, 2005, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law "On Amendments to Several Legislative Acts of Ukraine for the Protection of Financial Interests of the State," sponsored by BYuT faction deputies Oleh Lukashuk and Anatoliy Seminoha. This law granted the public organization “Tender Chamber of Ukraine” exclusive rights to carry out tender purchases and control over them.
The name changed, the essence of the scheme was somewhat altered, and new administrators were appointed. Although the "Tender Chamber" was also granted the status of a public organization, it received a broader range of powers than the previous "Tender Procedures Center." This was primarily because the "public" was represented entirely by government officials, primarily members of parliament. The supervisory board of the "Tender Chamber" included members of parliament Ihor Alekseyev (CPU faction), Pylyp Budzhdigan (CPU), and Ihor Kalnichenko (Regions of Ukraine). Vitaly Khomutynnik Mykola Karnaukh (Socialist Party), Oleh Lukashuk (BYuT), Anatoliy Seminoha (BYuT), Mykola Odaynyk (Our Ukraine), and Serhiy Osyka (United Ukraine). In addition, representatives from the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the State Treasury, and the Antimonopoly Committee, all controlled by the ruling parties (Our Ukraine, BYuT, and Socialist Party of Ukraine), were elected president of the Tender Chamber. Mykola Odaynyk (Our Ukraine) was elected first vice president, Ksenia Lyapina (Our Ukraine) was elected first vice president, and socialist Mykola Karnaukh became co-chair of the Supervisory Board. Oleh Fadeyev remained chairman of the board of the Tender Chamber.
Nikolai Odaynik
Although the charter of this "public organization" declared it non-profit, the powers of the "Tender Chamber," which monopolized and dominated all tender operations in the Ukrainian market, were sufficient for all manner of corrupt activities. They could organize tenders for their own "pocket" firms, profiting from the embezzlement of budget funds. They could also extract kickbacks from other firms by allowing them to participate in tenders. As a rule, the politicians and officials who controlled or sought to control the "Tender Chamber" specialized in one area, which led to constant conflicts between them.
Moreover, the activities of the "Tender Chamber" immediately sparked discontent among Ukrainian businessmen who were forced to pay kickbacks or were barred from tenders altogether. This gave rise to the nickname "tender mafia," which flourished in 2006-2007, following the entry into force of the law of December 15, 2005, "On the Procurement of Goods, Works, and Services with Public Funds," authored by Serhiy Osyka. This law further expanded the powers of the "Tender Chamber," which was empowered to: clarify the application of laws, determine the list of media outlets that meet the requirements for reporting on public procurement, approve closed procurement procedures, review complaints, publish information on tenders in print media, and monitor the implementation of public procurement.
And what of our hero? Anton Yatsenko wisely kept somewhat aloof from the Tender Chamber itself, despite serving as its vice president from 2005 to 2007. However, embezzlement and kickbacks during tenders weren't his strong suit, especially since leading political forces and powerful oligarchic groups were battling over them. Yatsenko continued to charge "failure fees," that is, selling forms and documentation for tenders, and he also patented and registered the electronic tender system in his own name (and that of his family members), including privatizing the "Government Procurement Portal of Ukraine" website, through which all tenders were conducted. Bidding through alternative websites, including those that had already taken place, was declared illegal, meaning that participants had to "re-register" them.
Meanwhile, battles involving political scandals of strategic proportions were unfolding over the Tender Chamber. For example, the law of December 15, 2005, drew objections from the World Bank, and President Yushchenko vetoed it. However, the Rada overrode the veto, unafraid to confront the Presidential Administration (the parliamentary elections were looming, however). And in July 2006, mass protests against the corruption schemes of the Tender Chamber erupted outside the Verkhovna Rada. Participants also demanded that European Consulting Agencies LLC (Yatsenko and Vrublevsky) be stripped of its monopoly over the electronic tender procurement system (the "Government Procurement of Ukraine" website).
The Accounting Chamber of Ukraine claimed to have received over 2,600 complaints regarding tender results from March to June 2006 alone. Meanwhile, Anton Yatsenko was convincing politicians and journalists that "criminals" were seeking to strip the Chamber of Commerce of its monopoly powers and transfer tenders to the Cabinet of Ministers. At the same time, Yatsenko and his family-affiliated associates mercilessly cracked down on publications that published allegations of corruption within the Chamber: they declared them slanderous and promptly sued them. Interestingly, a year later, as a member of parliament, Anton Yatsenko would initiate Bill No. 2085 of February 15, 2008, on criminal liability for journalists for defamation.
In August 2006, after the scandalous “political coup” that saw the creation of a coalition between the Party of Regions, the Communist Party of Ukraine, and the Socialist Party, changes took place in the leadership of the “Tender Chamber”: Mykola Odaynyk was dismissed, and Raisa BogatyrevaDuring her brief tenure as head of the Tender Chamber, Bogatyreva became known primarily for scandals involving tenders for medicines for the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, as well as her conflict with Mykola Azarov, who had become Ukraine's first deputy prime minister. The essence of the conflict was as follows: already in the fall of 2006, Azarov began insisting on transferring most of the authority overseeing tenders to the Cabinet of Ministers. It should be noted that this only partially affected Anton Yatsenko's "small business": he would have lost his monopoly on the e-tendering website (which was particularly disturbing to entrepreneurs), but he would have retained the right to intellectual property. However, the Verkhovna Rada not only failed to support Azarov, but also, with new amendments to the Law "On Public Procurement" on December 1, 2006, granted the Tender Chamber broader powers to oversee tenders. In short, you are your own auditor and prosecutor!
Viktor Yushchenko and Raisa Bogatyreva. Tender Chamber
2007 was the last year in the history of the "Tender Chamber," but also its most lucrative. Its leadership changed again: on June 14, Oleksandr Tkachenko, then a Communist Party MP, became president of this "public organization," replacing the departing Bogatyreva, and Yuriy Pakhomov (an advisor to Prime Minister Yanukovych) became vice president. It was said that Tkachenko's candidacy was lobbied for by Yatsenko, who in return reached an agreement with the communists to promote his people to power under the Communist Party's quota. At the same time, two pro-presidential teams were taking over the "Tender Chamber": Oleksandr Turchynov (Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council since May 2007) from the BYuT, and the head of the Secretariat from Our Ukraine Victor Baloha.
The structure of the "tender mafia" in 2007
Sources of Skelet.Org It was reported that the "income" from the corrupt operations of the "tender mafia" in 2007 amounted to hundreds of millions of hryvnias monthly, and a significant portion of this went to funding the election campaigns of the NU-NS and BYuT. Whether this is true or not, Anton Yatsenko was elected to the Rada in the fall on the BYuT list, as were Serhiy Osyka and their old mutual friend, Andriy Kozhemyakin. The new parliament attempted to once again revise the powers of the "Tender Chamber" in February 2008, but by then it had generated such a negative public response that on March 20, 2008, the Rada adopted Law No. 150-VI "On Repealing the Law of Ukraine 'On the Procurement of Goods, Works, and Services Using Public Funds,'" which stripped the "Tender Chamber" of all its powers. In fact, from that moment on, it was liquidated, formally remaining an abandoned and useless "public organization" in the process of liquidation – a fact to which Ukrainian politicians hastened to forget their affiliation.
Not just a tender
Anton Yatsenko skimmed the last of the profits from his brainchild by providing paid services to tender participants, transferring the fees to the accounts of Royal Finance, and from there to Brokbusinessbank, which belonged to Serhiy Buryak (another BYuT member). This scheme proved very useful when, on December 27, 2007, Serhiy Buryak became Chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine (STAU).
Sergey Buryak in the company of Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Yatsenko's method allowed him to turn more than just tenders into a source of income. The same mechanism for monopolizing services for lucrative profits was also implemented at the State Tax Administration. One day, its management ordered that electronic tax reporting would only be processed through the reporting operator, Effective Information Systems LLC. It so happened that the director of this company was Petr Krasnov, a close friend of Anton Yatsenko's who had worked with him at the "Tender Chamber." It was reported that tax-based services were even offered in bulk, with discounts: the cost of an "annual subscription" for legal entities was 960 hryvnias, while for private entrepreneurs it was 360 hryvnias. Member of Parliament Elena Lukash, who raised this issue at the time, claimed that this scheme was generating over 2 billion hryvnias annually for its creators!
Anton Yatsenko: the history of the tender combiner
At the same time, Yatsenko maintained his interest in good old-fashioned public procurement, especially since from 2008 to 2012 he chaired the Verkhovna Rada subcommittee on regulating the public procurement, procurement, and tender market. As the saying goes, they let the fox into the henhouse! Skelet.Org He received evidence that he had increased his income several-fold. Well, only the Tender Chamber was liquidated (or rather, stripped of its right to conduct tenders), and Yatsenko's monopoly on the online trading portal was also stripped. However, his LLCs, which sold documentation, and his intellectual property patents remained. Yatsenko applied with them to the Ministry of Economy, which had been in charge of public procurement since 2008. Media reported that his then-minister, Bohdan Danylyshyn (currently head of the National Bank of Ukraine), along with Oleksandr Turchynov and Anton Yatsenko, formed a triumvirate that managed to "raise" several billion hryvnias—of course, not shared solely among themselves.
Incidentally, when these and other Yatsenko schemes began to collapse, the Royal Finance company suddenly ceased to exist, and its director, Vasily Nikiforov (it was reported that he had been convicted three times and was addicted to drugs), died under strange circumstances.
In the 2010 elections, BYuT members Anton Yatsenko, Serhiy Buryak, and Serhiy Osyka naturally backed Yulia Tymoshenko—and after her defeat, they defected to the winning side. However, Yatsenko's transition was difficult and protracted. In May 2010, the media reported a fight between Yatsenko and newly appointed Economy Minister Vasyl Tsushko. More precisely, it was a beating: Tsushko reportedly punched Yatsenko in the face, drawing blood. Two reasons were cited for the conflict: first, an old feud, and second, Yatsenko's excessive brazenness in approaching Tsushko to discuss personnel matters at the Economy Ministry. Apparently, Yatsenko was attempting not only to maintain his influence in the Economy Ministry (and in the public procurement system), but also to expand it by lobbying for the appointment of several more of his people. But the exact opposite happened: Tsushko fired several of Yatsenko's employees from the ministry: Yuriy Vitrenko (Natalia Vitrenko's ex-husband), the head of the public procurement department, Victoria Sukhova, as well as several department heads who had previously worked at European Consulting Agencies LLC.
Just a few days later, Anton Yatsenko was involved in yet another accident: his Bentley Continental GT (priced at €169) failed to yield on a narrow Kyiv street and crashed into the fender of a VAZ-2110. A few minutes later, the terrified Lada driver fled, and the traffic police who arrived at the scene, after a brief conversation with Yatsenko, pushed his car to the nearest parking lot.
One setback after another dogged Yatsenko: in August 2010, he was charged with a $1,5 billion fraud! During the affair, he suffered a nervous breakdown (or feigned one), and on August 26, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he rested until the scandals died down. He soon emerged with the firm conviction that he needed to "retrain as a house manager." More precisely, he needed to apply his scheme to the then-untapped State Commission for the Regulation of Financial Services Markets, headed by Vasyl Volga, the former leader of the Union of Left Forces. With his help, a new scheme was created, the key links of which were the Kyiv Offset Factory, which produced strict accounting forms, securities, tickets, etc., and the specially created Kyivholography LLC, which acted as an intermediary. The State Finance Committee ordered documentation and insurance forms from Kyivholography LLC at prices that were tenfold (!) inflated. The orders were fulfilled by the Kyiv Offset Factory, and the profits of these clever schemers were siphoned off into a dozen other companies. When the scam was uncovered in 2011, only Vasyl Volga was jailed for all of them.
Yatsenko, however, found a way to approach the president's son and, in April 2012, organized a scam in the appraisal services market with Oleksandr Yanukovych (aka Sasha the Stomatolog). The scheme was the same: appraisal services were monopolized and assigned to a few select firms, with the price skyrocketing. The scheme smelled of enormous profits, but scandal quickly erupted: several thousand independent appraisers, now out of work, began protesting and bombarding all authorities with complaints. Furthermore, the increased appraisal fees caused the real estate market to plummet. The scheme was quickly shut down.
God gave, Anton Yatsenko took
Close cooperation with the new government brought Anton Yatsenko into the Party of Regions as early as 2011. However, in the 2012 elections, he was forced to run for parliament independently, in single-member constituency No. 200 in Uman. Apparently, he had enough money not only to win the election, having generously bribed everyone in Uman, but also to literally buy out the district for the future (he won the 2014 elections there as well).
However, during the election campaign, Yatsenko found himself in another situation, this time with a fatal outcome. On September 1, 2012, on a highway near Uman, his Mercedes ML500 collided with a Daewoo Nexia compact car, killing the passenger instantly. Eyewitnesses claimed that Anton Yatsenko himself was driving, drunk, and hastily removed the license plates from his car after the tragedy.
Soon, the investigation into this case took an unexpected turn. General Valeriy Dernovoy, head of the Cherkasy Oblast Department of Internal Affairs, produced an official letter claiming that the man driving the Mercedes was not Anton Yatsenko, but a certain Sergei Gavrilenko. Furthermore, the unfortunate deceased driver of the Daewoo was blamed for the accident—several empty alcohol bottles were allegedly found inside. It's worth noting that General Dernovoy himself was convicted in 2006 of rigging the Mukachevo mayoral election.
Having won the 2012 elections, Anton Yatsenko chaired the parliamentary subcommittee on securities and the stock market – once again finding himself in his element. Although his name didn't figure in any high-profile scandals during 2013, no one who knew Yatsenko would have believed that he was idle and living on his parliamentary salary alone. He assured his constituents of this, however, for several years declaring in his parliamentary declarations that he didn't even own a home. But in 2014, information surfaced that Anton Yatsenko and his family (including his wife's relatives) owned not only a luxurious fleet of cars that would make any oligarch envious, but also an impressive array of real estate in the capital, totaling 8,3 square meters. The market value of all these apartments, houses, and offices is over one billion hryvnias! So, our tender schemer turned out to be a real Koreiko!
Immediately after Euromaidan, along with other members of the Party of Regions, Anton Yatsenko hastily left the crumbling Party of Regions. Elected to parliament in 2014, he joined the "Vidrodzhennia" parliamentary group. Although this group is formally in "constructive opposition" to the ruling coalition, Yatsenko was often caught pushing buttons during votes on laws favored by the government. And it's quite possible he wasn't just trying. However, neither his outright "button-pushing" nor the very presence of a man with such a "renowned" reputation in parliament raised any questions among the "democratic majority."
Moreover, it seems that, in the company of deputies from the pro-presidential faction, Anton Yatsenko has identified an opportunity for a new profitable combination – this time in the public transportation sector. Recently, together with deputies Roman Matsola и Ruslan Solvar Registered Bill No. 5424, which proposes a new mechanism for financing subsidized transportation. The explanatory note claims that the implementation of this mechanism will allow Ukrzaliznytsia to reduce its losses and save the state billions of hryvnias. This raises concerns about the future of Ukrainian railways—after all, Roman Yatsenko once sang the same thing when offering the services of his "Tender Procedures Center."
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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