Boris Filatov: Raider, Liar, Boor
Why do Ukrainians elect as mayors either stoned eccentrics, or tongue-tied "philosophers," or even raiders and racketeers who have been robbing these cities for years? Just ask the people of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and the "Dniprians"—as the residents of the former Dnipropetrovsk are now commonly called. Judging by the growing number of publications about its leader, Borys Filatov, the city is on the brink of a massive corruption scandal. However, even the NABU, who has surrounded himself with numerous "patriots" and connections at the highest levels, will find it incredibly difficult to take down Filatov with bare hands.
Boris Filatov: "We are Pskopians!"
In 2014, Boris Filatov, during an interview, when asked about his sworn opponent Alexandra Vilkule He said the following: "We've known each other since 1994. But Sasha never likes to remember that Yulia Vladimirovna gave us our start in life. We started out under her leadership at UESU, only he was a manager and I was a lawyer. All these years, Vilkul pretended he was Akhmetov's son, and you can't forget the past."
Indeed, you can’t throw away the past, although, as I found out Skelet.OrgBoris Filatov has been doing just that lately, as his biography before 2005 consists of just a few lines about how he "worked as a legal consultant for various businesses." But then he became a journalist, began touring the world on a motorcycle, scuba diving to the seabed, and collecting netsuke—becoming the Filatov the residents of Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro) elected their mayor. Only occasionally does he reveal details about his past: in fragments, leaving much unsaid. But this is not surprising; many people without a past have now come to power at various levels in Ukraine—one that could prevent them from appearing "patriotic" and "reformer."
So, Boris Albertovich Filatov was born on March 7, 1972, in Dnipropetrovsk. There are many theories about his origins, but he himself claims he is not even partially Jewish, and that his ancestors were Russian peasants from the Pskov region ("Pskopskie"). And there's no reason not to believe him. But how, then, did he become so entrenched in the "Jewish family" of Kolomoisky and Korban, so completely that he even adopted their style of speech and their rude mannerisms? And that's precisely what he always kept quiet about!
Boris Filatov: Raider, Liar, Boor
Patriot and driver Boris Filatov didn't serve in the military, but instead graduated from Dnipropetrovsk University with degrees in history and law. Then the young lawyer found a job at... no, not at the EESU corporation, which was created only in November 1995 after the collapse of the Sodruzhestvo corporation. And if Boris Filatov wasn't lying when he said that he and Oleksandr Vilkul started out with Yulia Tymoshenko in 1994, then that means they worked at that very same Sodruzhestvo corporation. Except Yulia Tymoshenko was practically a nobody there at the time. Sodruzhestvo was founded in 1992 by two family businesses: Interpipe, owned by the Pinchuks and Arshava, and Ukrainian Gasoline, owned by Tymoshenko.Read more about this in Viktor Pinchuk: Ukraine's richest son-in-law). In the latter, Gennady Timoshenko was in charge, and Yulia Vladimirovna was then only his daughter-in-law.
A close friend and patron of the Arshava family was the then Dnipropetrovsk governor, Pavlo Lazarenko, who became the "roof" first of the Commonwealth and then of the UESU. Yulia Tymoshenko's career began around 1993-94, when she gained such affection for Lazarenko that she soon became his confidant.
So, in essence, Pavel Ivanovich was the main man at both Sodruzhestvo and UESU—which means lawyer Filatov and manager Vilkul worked for him, even when Yulia Tymoshenko was appointed head of UESU in 1996. The following was said about the specifics of Filatov's work at Sodruzhestvo and UESU: he wasn't involved in drafting commercial contracts, but rather in privatization, acquisitions, and corporate raids. By 1998, the corporation had accumulated more than twenty enterprises, including research institutes, an airport, and several banks. Incidentally, while toiling away in his Dnipropetrovsk offices, Filatov somehow managed to defend his PhD in law at Odessa University in 1997.
So why didn't Filatov, when recalling the beginning of his career under Tymoshenko, mention Pavlo Ivanovich, his main boss? Wasn't it because, in 1998, at Leonid Kuchma's instigation, the UESU corporation suffered a massive tax and law enforcement crackdown, bringing its business to a virtual standstill? And in early 1999, Pavlo Lazarenko himself was arrested in the United States. The rats began to flee the sinking ship—and Filatov was one of the first to abandon it. Various sources reported that Filatov fled UESU not empty-handed, but with an armful of original and copied documents, as well as valuable information about the legal vulnerabilities of Lazarenko's collapsed empire. And he fled straight to the Privat Group.
Boris Filatov: Robbery, Dnepropetrovsk Style
"There is no corporate raiding in Ukraine, only improperly prepared documents." This dictum by Gennady Korban, perfectly embodying the essence of his method of "squeezing" other people's property, should have been carved in marble above the entrance to his company, Slavutich-Registrar. It was through this door that Boris Filatov entered in the late 90s with a folder stuffed with papers.
When asked what the descendant of Pskov peasants, the headman of the St. John Chrysostom Church (UOC MP) Boris Filatov, and the honorary members of Chabad, trustees of the Dnepropetrovsk synagogue, descendants of the rabbis and tzaddikim Kolomoisky and Bogolyubova, the answer is simple: business. As a businessman, Kolomoisky is willing to cooperate with anyone and take anyone as an ally – as long as it benefits him. And the "Filatov folder" looked promising back then! Moreover, it's worth considering that Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov didn't embrace Filatov or make him a shareholder in Privat; they didn't even do direct business with him – they immediately sent him to Korban.
Gennady Korban and Chief Rabbi of the Dnipropetrovsk Chabad community Shmuel Kaminetsky at the Hanukkah celebration
Before becoming “Kolomoisky’s man,” Gennady Korban worked for many clients, for example, for Sergei Taruta (Read more about it in Serhiy Taruta, the secret coordinator of Ukrainian oligarchs). But he abandoned him in the midst of the war for the Dnipropetrovsk Pipe Plant and Petrovsky's Dniprodzerzhynsk Plant, when Privat offered him more. With such a tarnished reputation, Korban would have had trouble finding new clients himself, so he had only one option: continue working for Privat. Fortunately for him, Kolomoisky's business plans were simply imperial, so Korban always had more than his share of work. However, it should be noted: Korban was always merely Kolomoisky's "personal business hitman," not an equal partner and friend like Bogolyubov; he always occupied a position below the Privat co-owners. Boris Filatov's position in this hierarchy was even lower—after all, he worked for Gennady Korban for many years, first as a lawyer, and then as an attorney at his Slavutich Registrar. This is something Filatov also prefers not to recall today.
Filatov actively assisted Privat in seizing Lazarenko's former business, and one of the first major "squeezes" was the battle for the Southern Mining and Processing Plant (GOK). It began as early as 1999 and lasted two years. Tymoshenko tried to sell 60% of the shares of the Southern Mining and Processing Plant to the oligarch Novinsky (Read more about it in Vadim Novinsky: From Raider to Peacekeeper), but an attack by Privat raiders scuttled the deal. Korban and Filatov then managed to acquire a portion of the mining and processing plant's shares for Privat, after which they resorted to dilution, repurchase, and other corporate raiding tactics. It all culminated in the fall of 2001 with the traditional "extraordinary" shareholders' meeting, which removed the old mining and processing plant's supervisory board, which had remained under UESU (including Yuriy Vilkul, Oleksandr Vilkul's father), and replaced it with a new supervisory board headed by Korban. True, Novinsky's "titushki" squads later attempted to recapture the mining and processing plant's office, and Korban's "titushki" counterattacked, but this didn't change the main point: UESU had lost the plant. Soon, Alexander Vilkul also lost his job there (as deputy head of finance), finding himself a position at the Central Mining and Processing Plant, thus "transferring" to Rinat Akhmetov. This, in essence, is the story of how and why Boris Filatov and Gennady Korban, on the one hand, and the Vilkuls, father and son, on the other, fell out for many years. But the struggle for Lazarenko's inheritance didn't end there.
Pavlo Lazarenko: Fifteen people for the ex-prime minister's chest
Major UESU enterprises were partly sold off by Tymoshenko, and partly plundered by other oligarchs. Why didn't Korban and Filatov "pocket" any of them for themselves, instead of "squeezing" them out for others? Indeed, taking Korban as an example, he owns stakes in Ukrtelecom, Ukrnafta, Dniprooblenergo, Kyivenergo, AvtoZAZ, Stirol, Khartron, UNIAN, and Glavred (Filatov is also a shareholder in the last two), but none of them is a controlling stake. This is one of the peculiarities of Ukrainian business, built on a system of connections, balances, and deals. All the raiders-executors (of other people's orders) seemed to know their place and didn't open their mouths at fish they couldn't swallow – contenting themselves with fees for the work done (including a small share of the "squeezed" enterprises) and a smaller catch.
For Korban and Filatov, the prize was Pavlo Lazarenko's Dnipropetrovsk property. But the seizure of it dragged on for a good ten years, because the "treasures" weren't lying around unattended: they were registered to relatives and confidantes of the former prime minister, and had "protection" in the person of his brother, Ivan Lazarenko, who headed the Hromada faction in the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council, which enjoyed some support from the Party of Regions (which allowed Ivan Lazarenko to be elected deputy chairman of the regional council). The very existence of this faction, according to Skelet.Org, was largely based on Ivan Lazarenko's ability to convince his comrades of the possibility of his brother's imminent return from America back to Ukraine—followed by the vengeance on enemies and traitors and the distribution of rewards to loyal children. This belief was so strong that in the 2006 local elections, Hromada managed to include Pavlo Lazarenko on its list and then grant him a seat on the regional council. As you can see, the relatively recent "in absentia" election of Nadiya Savchenko, who was imprisoned in Russia at the time, was not the first such precedent.
But Korban and Filatov decided that such precedents should be nipped in the bud. The "Lazarenko case" in Ukraine was directly handled by Boris Filatov, a former employee of Sodruzhestvo and UESU. He was now Korban's lawyer and a lawyer for Slavutich-Registrar, and since 2004, he had also become a journalist – the author and host of the program "Provincial Chronicles" on Channel 9. And here's a pleasant surprise: Filatov intended only to use this program for information attacks and the manipulation of public opinion (so useful in corporate raids), but it turned out that some viewers began to regard him as an anti-corruption fighter and human rights activist! It's worth noting that by the end of 2005, Filatov officially became a dollar millionaire. Now the successful lawyer could afford to travel around the world on a motorcycle and show off his cleverness on his own television show.
But, not limiting himself to journalistic "exposés" of Lazarenko, who was imprisoned overseas, Filatov in July 2006 secured a court ruling for the early termination of Pavlo Lazarenko's parliamentary powers, as he had not resided in Ukraine for several years. This was a purely psychological ploy against the Dnipropetrovsk "Hromada" party and those who believed in the second coming of Pavlo Ivanovich.
The next time journalist and lawyer Boris Filatov spoke out against Lazarenko was in November 2009, acting as a representative of a "witness" (who turned out to be Gennady Korban). Filatov flew to California for the court hearing that was deciding the prisoner's fate. Since the trial was about reducing his prison sentence, the Dnipropetrovsk raiders were at risk of Lazarenko's early release, which could have caused them a lot of trouble. And there was reason to worry: the great Dnipropetrovsk redistribution was not without bloodshed, with the raiders dying one after another, like the pirates in Treasure Island.
Following the war for the Dnipropetrovsk Ozerki market (second half) in 2006, during which Russian oligarch Maxim Kurochkin (Max Besheny) and several of his associates were murdered, the victorious Korban-Filatov raider team, which also included Vyacheslav Braginsky and Gennady Akselrod, finally decided to lay its hands on the Lazarenko family's property. The situation was favorable: due to the major political crisis in Kyiv (spring-summer 2007), the Party of Regions had no time to support the Dnipropetrovsk Hromada party, but Korban-Filatov had a free hand.
Various methods were used to seize the property. For example, the "Lotus" store was privatized by Lazarenko's Dniproneft in 1995, and in 1998-99, the store was transferred to a new owner, just before the company's takeover by Privat. And in 2007, legal genius Boris Filatov, by court order, returned the "Lotus" to Dniproneft, i.e., Privat—after which everyone received their share of this more than successful deal. In total, between 2006 and 2009, the Lazarenko "family" lost a pharmacy chain, two shopping centers, an office building on Komsomolskaya 58, and the "European" and "Astoria Lux" hotels in Dnipropetrovsk. But during the seizure of the Central Department Store and the Astoria, the clever lawyer Filatov, who was defending the interests of Dneproneft, was joined by journalist Filatov, who lashed out at the American lawyer Martin Garbuz, who had arrived to defend these properties from corporate raiding.
Interestingly, the seizure of the hotels, including the Lotus, was carried out through the companies of Vyacheslav Braginsky, who was murdered on October 13, 2009. The murder caused a huge stir, as Braginsky worked with Privat as another raider, specializing in patent rights and handling high-level matters. The media began to fan the idea that this was revenge by Moscow gangsters against Privat for Kurochkin's murder. A little later, Gennady Korban claimed that it was revenge by Pavel Lazarenko, who allegedly was weaving a global conspiracy even from his prison cell. But here's what was later established. Skelet.OrgImmediately after the hotel seizures, they were transferred from the ownership of companies controlled by Braginsky (who also acted on behalf of Dneproneft) to the ownership of the Manhattan company, owned by Korban and Filatov. It was speculated that Braginsky decided to sell his share of the "seized" properties to Korban and Filatov. However, whether they paid him for them remains unknown.
Boris Filatov: Raider, Liar, Boor
Gennady Axelrod
On April 14, 2012, Gennady Axelrod was murdered in Dnipropetrovsk. He was considered the most intelligent and cultured of the four Privat raiders, and the most respected by Kolomoisky. This was largely because he was involved in the design and construction of the Dnipropetrovsk Menorah Center and was generally involved in the construction business, albeit not always successfully. Naturally, media outlets close to Filatov and Korban immediately launched a "revenge" narrative, but now they were throwing hints not only at Lazarenko but also at Governor Vilkul. Meanwhile, Axelrod co-owned his construction company, GUM LLC, as well as several other enterprises, with Korban. This, naturally, gave rise to nasty rumors that Korban was treating his partners like Captain Flint did to the sailors who buried the chest. And the role of the next victim of "Lazarenko's revenge" was predicted to be Boris Filatov...
Boris Filatov: "We will teach you to love your homeland!"
It's only natural that immediately after Kolomoisky decided to invest in Euromaidan, Boris Filatov also began babbling about "defending the European choice." Moreover, Filatov and Korban were tasked with organizing the Euromaidan in Dnipropetrovsk, with the Passage shopping center, which they owned, as its center. They had already set up a screen and begun preparing the stage... but then Filatov and Korban changed their plans and, in January 2014, announced their intention to leave Ukraine due to political persecution by Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Vilkul. They never emigrated, but the self-promotion was quite impressive. But far more interesting was the political and psychological transformation of Boris Filatov, who in February 2014 emerged as a radical and ruthless "patriot" with a penchant for "Russian-speaking Ukrainian nationalism," who also began to be rude and insolent.
At the time, Igor Mosiychuk, who had just been released from prison,Read more about it in Igor Mosiychuk: How one of Ukraine's leading "radicals" got his start) threatened Crimeans with "friendship trains," fueling passions. The newly appointed vice-governor of Dnipro (Kolomoisky's deputy), Boris Filatov, decided to uphold the new government's tradition and took to his blog. He wrote the following: "No landings from the Maidan, no extremist statements, we must give the scum any promises, guarantees, and make any concessions... And hang... we'll hang them later." The proposal to hang political opponents from a supposed supporter of "European integration and democracy" sounded outrageous. But the worst part was that the call to hang, coming from a representative of the new government, was immediately picked up by the media in Russia, Crimea, and Donbas—and the "Kiselevs" immediately began to "throw it on the fan," fueling panic and anti-Ukrainian sentiment in the south and east of the country. Filatov didn't care, since, together with Korban, he was taking charge of the Right Sector and its leader. Dmitry Yarosh, with the aim of using radical nationalists to defend Dnepropetrovsk from “creeping separatism.”
Boris Filatov with his friend Dmitry Yarosh
It's difficult to say why this particular version of patriotism was chosen over all the other options. Some argue that the formula "if you're a Russophobe, then you're a Ukrainian patriot" was deemed the simplest and most effective in a context where there was no time to appeal to higher forms of patriotism. They decided to respond to pro-Russian chauvinism with Ukrainian nationalism, but did they understand that these clashing opposites reinforce each other, dividing and radicalizing Ukrainian citizens?
Things got even worse. Sources reported that several provocative Right Sector raids (in jeeps equipped with machine guns) on separatist checkpoints near Slovyansk in April 2014 were intended to provoke armed clashes—which is precisely what happened. This was allegedly done to disrupt the nascent dialogue between the militants and Ukrainian troops, to prevent their "fraternization" and further advancement toward Dnipropetrovsk. Whether this is true or just rumors, throughout 2014, the actions of Right Sector, as well as the emerging Dnipro Battalion, were effectively directed by their sponsors and handlers, Filatov and Korban. And as one of the battalion commanders later told the media, the fatal order for the immediate capture of Ilovaisk (which ended in a horrific "cauldron") was given by Korban on August 5, 2014, at a military meeting of volunteer battalion commanders. The bitter paradox is that Korban was then only the "chief of staff of the head of the regional state administration," and his combat experience was limited to commanding "titushki" (illegal troops) who stormed company offices.
There is also a version of the connection between Kolomoisky, Korban and Filatov in the smuggling of organs, which were successfully “obtained” by Yarosh on the battlefield.
The creation of the UKROP party seemed even more of a paradox (Ukrainian Union of Patriots, more about it - UKROP – Dnipropetrovsk patriots "in law"), which began with the factional unification of several deputies elected in the fall of 2014: the raider Boris Filatov, surrounded by the "Right Sector" members Yarosh and Bereza, and the "patriotic gopnik" Parasyuk. Moreover, Gennady Korban soon became the party's leader! It was from "UKROP" that Korban ran for mayor of Chernihiv (where he vainly bribed voters with buckwheat), and then of Kyiv (he received 2,6% of the vote). He ran against the protégé of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the young rich kid - the "wedding general" Serhiy Berezenko (more about him - Two Biographies of Sergei Berezenko: How a "New Generation" Politician Promotes His Position in the US). However, Filatov's political career was successful: in the fall of 2015, he was elected mayor of Dnipropetrovsk (his main opponent was Oleksandr Vilkul), which he would soon rename simply Dnipro. Three factors ensured Filatov's victory: his fame as a television journalist, his support from the Poroshenko Bloc, with which he began actively collaborating, and the support of "patriotic activists" who made threatening noise outside the windows of the election commissions.
Victory turned Filatov's head even further. Not only did he continue to publicly insult his opponents (writing on Oleksandr Vilkul's blog, "In your soul, you're a scumbag, a complex, hysterical, narcissistic scumbag"), but he also completely lost his political bearings. Soon, a scandal would rock Ukraine: the founder of the UKROP party and best friend of the Right Sector leaders, Boris Filatov, hired as his head of security the gangster Yevhen Taran—whose "titushki" (illegal force) had beaten up the Dnipropetrovsk Euromaidan protesters in the winter of 2014. Filatov also made Mykhailo Lysenko, another crime boss previously convicted of robbery and theft, one of his deputies.
The media reported that Kolomoisky initiated the cover-up campaign against Filatov, as a deep rift developed between the Privat owner and his now former raiders Korban and Filatov in 2015-2016. When Kolomoisky fell out with Poroshenko And when he found himself on the brink of collapse, Filatov, as usual, dumped his boss and began cultivating contacts with the presidential "family," bringing Korban along with him. This effectively threatened Kolomoisky with the loss of Dnipro as his fiefdom, with the city falling under the control of Poroshenko's team. In return, as a thank you from Kyiv, Filatov received not only a "safe conduct" but also generous financial gifts—for example, 300 million euros for the completion of the metro. Moreover, Bankova Street has already made it clear that they will not hold Filatov strictly accountable for his spending.
But he's not only betting on Poroshenko: by the end of 2016, it became clear that Filatov had decided to bet on the possible favorite in the upcoming presidential elections. Andrey SadovoyHe "sheltered" his man, Vyacheslav Mishalov (making him secretary of the city council), who, with Filatov's help, began to take over the tender schemes that had previously generated lucrative profits for Privat. Last fall alone, Mishalov "won" tenders in Dnipro worth over 200 million hryvnias!
Kolomoisky never forgave them for this: Skelet.Org He knows the theory that he had a hand in Korban's arrest, which placed him squarely in the crosshairs of responsibility for the corporate raids, as their scheme excluded any blame for those who ordered them. Boris Filatov was supposed to join him, but arresting the mayor was already impossible, and so his position began to crumble.
But despite the threat of terrible revenge from his now former boss, Filatov feels confident and continues to engage in his corporate raiding activities even while in the mayor's chair. For example, he's been "squeezing out" the municipal enterprise "ATU." It wouldn't be surprising if Filatov also returns to his television shows—and now the main character in his "exposés" will no longer be Pavlo Lazarenko, but Igor Kolomoisky.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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