Criminal liability on a national scale has been replaced by political irresponsibility.
The decentralization of power lobbied for by Petro Poroshenko should, in theory, empower regional communities with genuine powers to self-govern and sufficient financial resources to do so. In practice, the virtual incapacity and decay of law enforcement agencies is already leading to the concentration of local power in the hands of regional criminals.
We've already described this phenomenon, which threatens Ukraine's very statehood, using the example of the Brovary district (see the publication "Brovary Bandits or Typical Ukraine"). Exactly the same processes—with the connivance and even encouragement of the central government—are currently unfolding in the neighboring Boryspil district.
Today, Petro Poroshenko's team has effectively handed over the Boryspil district to a regional criminal organization, whose public face and "ideological" leader is Serhiy Mishchenko, a Verkhovna Rada deputy who is part of the ruling Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction. Before the Revolution of Dignity, this former prosecutor served in the BYuT faction, and under President Viktor Yanukovych, in the Party of Regions faction.
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Sergey Grigorievich Mishchenko was born on August 13, 1971 in Boryspil, Kyiv region. In 1990 he graduated from the Chernihiv Law College. In 1995 - from the Yaroslav the Wise National Law Academy. He has a candidate of legal sciences degree in criminal law and criminology (penal executive law). In 1994-1998 - assistant, senior assistant prosecutor, investigator, deputy prosecutor of the Boryspil inter-district prosecutor's office. 1998-2001 - deputy prosecutor of the Darnitsky district, prosecutor of the Podolsk district of Kyiv. 2000-2001 - Head of the Department for the Coordination of the Activities of Law Enforcement Agencies and Other Government Agencies in the Fight Against Corruption and Organized Crime of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine. 2001-2002 - Prosecutor of the Kyiv region. 2002-2003 — Deputy Prosecutor of Kyiv. From December 2003 to January 2004 — Assistant, Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Hennadiy Vasylyev. 2006-2007 — People's Deputy of Ukraine of the 5th convocation from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (No. 57 on the electoral list). Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Corruption and Organized Crime. 2007-2012 — People's Deputy of Ukraine of the 6th convocation from the BYuT (No. 57 on the list). Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy. Since December 2012 — People's Deputy of Ukraine of the 7th convocation, entered parliament as an independent candidate in single-mandate constituency No. 98 in the Kyiv region. Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy. Non-factional. Since November 2001, he has held the rank of State Counselor of Justice, 3rd class (Major General of Justice). Honored Lawyer of Ukraine (2011).
It's worth recalling that on the eve of the Maidan, Yulia Tymoshenko's defense attorney, Serhiy Vlasenko, called Serhiy Mishchenko a traitor. The reason for this statement was Mishchenko's bill to defer Yulia Tymoshenko's sentence while she undergoes medical treatment abroad. On his Facebook page, Vlasenko wrote the following: "Serhiy Mishchenko, you are a hypocrite, a traitor, an immoral person, and a worthy son of your 'father,' Prosecutor General Pshonka."
Serhiy Mishchenko and former Prosecutor General Pshonka have a long and illustrious history. In late 2013, as the Maidan protests were already raging, the newspaper Vesti reported that the Prosecutor General's son, Party of Regions MP Artem Pshonka, had become the godfather of Serhiy Mishchenko's son. Prior to this, Mishchenko had refused to vote for Prosecutor General Pshonka's dismissal in the Verkhovna Rada. This, according to Batkivshchyna representatives, led to his downgrade on the party's election list (he was then ranked 141st), and consequently, his departure from the faction.
But on April 12, 2014, when even the Party of Regions had no doubts about the victory of the Revolution of Dignity, Serhiy Mishchenko joined the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction. The traitor, the Party of Regions' accomplice who had voted alongside them for legislation detrimental to the country, was welcomed with open arms: nothing personal, just business.
S. Mishchenko diligently earned the trust of the victors. It was he who voiced the "initiative" to liquidate the Ministry of Revenue and Duties. He explained his draft resolution to liquidate the ministry by saying that "the Ministry of Revenue and Duties must die." In reality, this was a scam by the winners of the "lucrative positions": the BPP, BYuT, and the Front for Change were unable to divide up the most lucrative ministry, and to ensure there was enough "pie" for all beneficiaries, the Ministry of Revenue and Duties was divided into several departments. This, however, ran counter to the practice in developed countries, where a single department oversees all state revenues.
In gratitude for this service, S. Mishchenko immediately demanded an immediate change in the management of Boryspil Airport—a city-forming enterprise in the Boryspil district, strategically important to the state. Simultaneously, a group of criminal elements from the Boryspil criminal underworld seized several airport buildings. According to the publication "Nashi Groshi," the bandits arrived at the seizure in a Lexus and a Mercedes Benz, claiming to be representatives of the Maidan.
It should be noted that control over the infrastructure of the State Enterprise "Boryspil International Airport" and its cash flows is a traditional area of interest for the "Boryspil organized crime group" of brothers Vladislav and Sergey Baichas – Sergey Mishchenko. This organized crime group, which emerged in the late 80s and early 90s, began with illegal taxi services and control of taxi operations at Boryspil Airport. Additional activities of this organized crime group included airport baggage theft, smuggling contraband, facilitating robberies of taxi customers, illegal trade, and illegal currency transactions.
As the criminal group's business activities expanded and it laundered its ill-gotten gains into officially registered businesses, gang members began mass, systematic bribery of district officials, local law enforcement officials, judges, and airport employees—the financial backbone of this organized crime group.
It was at this stage that a promising local prosecutor, Sergei Mishchenko, joined the organized crime group. He provided increasing cover for the illegal activities of the "Boryspil organized crime group," actively participating in joint business projects with the gangsters on a shared-equity basis.
While already working at the Prosecutor General's Office, Serhiy Mishchenko was one of those suspected by colleagues of leaking official information related to the Gongadze investigation. As a reminder, from 2000 to 2001, Mishchenko served as the head of the Prosecutor General's Office's Department for Coordinating the Activities of Law Enforcement and Other Government Agencies to Combat Corruption and Organized Crime. Mishchenko's career in the prosecutor's office took off when Viktor Medvedchuk became head of the Presidential Administration and Viktor Yanukovych became Prime Minister: one of the leaders of the "Boryspil organized crime group" became an assistant to Prosecutor General Gennady Vasilyev, a typical "Donetsk" figure.
However, this is hardly surprising: during that period, Russian intelligence agencies were actively infiltrating Ukrainian government structures with their protégés, hoping for a painless and hassle-free "seizure" of power during the upcoming presidential elections. This sheds new light on the impunity and "unsinkability" of the "Boryspil organized crime group," which successfully survived all the gangster "purge" operations undertaken by the authorities beginning in the mid-90s. It's quite likely that the "Boryspil organized crime group" had influential handlers among the leaders of either the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Security Service of Ukraine.
After the defeat of the Party of Regions (Russia) in 2005, S. Mishchenko went into hiding. But in 2006, he resurfaced as a member of the Verkhovna Rada, finding refuge in the BYuT (Byut Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc), a stash house for Russian intelligence agents, criminal businessmen, and swindlers of all stripes.
Yulia Tymoshenko's company and those like her provided a fertile ground for S. Mishchenko and the "Boryspil organized crime group" until 2012, when Viktor Yanukovych became president of Ukraine. Mishchenko immediately reoriented himself toward his former "partners" in the pro-Russian camp; at the same time, all the "Boryspil organized crime group" protégés in government bodies joined the Party of Regions. Vladislav Baichas, a native of the "gypsy cabbies" who "controlled" Boryspil Airport in the early 1990s, also became a "Regional." Now, V. Baichas headed the Boryspil District Council and, concurrently, the Boryspil District Organization of the Party of Regions.
Vladyslav Baichas
The appointment of Viktor Pshonka as Prosecutor General also took place with the participation of S. Mishenko, then a member of the BYuT. Before voting "yes," Mishchenko explained his position by saying that Pshonka's appointment would bring stability to thousands of prosecutors and their families, and that he personally knew Pshonka as a "deeply religious man." "After some time, Viktor Pavlovich (Pshonka – editor's note) will be called 'our father,' and that's worth all those stars on his shoulder straps," Mishchenko said before the vote in the Rada.
There was no expulsion from the opposition that time, although Oleksandr Turchynov, then deputy leader of the Batkivshchyna party, stated that the BYuT faction would evaluate the actions of its deputies who voted to appoint Viktor Pshonka as Prosecutor General.
And S. Mishchenko, having gone over to the camp of the winners – the BPP, continued to “gut” the Boryspil district and the Boryspil airport, which is where the interests of the “Boryspil organized crime group” of the Baichas-Mishchenko brothers are tied.
The Revolution of Dignity brought only profit to the "Boryspil organized crime group".
Pshonka's entourage controls the most profitable parking lots in Boryspil.
Thus, the parking lots closest to Terminals D and B of Boryspil Airport are now serviced by the company "Airport Parking", whose founders are accomplices of S. Mishchenko.
This was reported by Nashi Groshi.
Airport Parking operates four parking lots at Boryspil Airport. Because they are closest to Terminals D and B, they have the highest parking fees—an average of 15-30 hryvnias per hour.
At the same time, the airport retained for itself the less attractive parking lots located far from the terminals.
"Parking at the terminal costs the airport approximately $1 per passenger in lost revenue. That's roughly $7 million per year," commented Vladimir Shulmeister, now former First Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, in 2015.
It should be added that Airport Parking LLC was established in February 2014, before the blood had been washed away from the Maidan. The company is registered to its director, Dmytro Mazur, who until recently had been the head of TMD Service. One of the latter's founders, until recently, was Oleksandr Ivlev, a business partner of Valeriy Seriy and Vladislav Baichas. Valeriy Seriy worked as an assistant to MP Serhiy Mishchenko, and Vladislav Baichas is now a Boryspil politician known as Mishchenko's godfather.
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Vladislav Mykhailovych Baychas was born on June 28, 1970 in the village of Protsiv, Boryspil district, Kyiv region. Graduated from the International Institute of Business and Law, faculty of economics. Married, has 4 children. Since 1992 - founder of the passenger transportation enterprise in the state enterprise International Airport "Boryspil". Since 1995 - founder of LLC "Nays". Since 1999 - Chairman of the Board of OJSC "Euronaftoprodukt". 11.2010-03.2014; since 11.2015 - Chairman of the Boryspil District Council. He was a member of the Party of Regions, chairman of the Boryspil district organization of the Party of Regions (12.2010-2014).
By the way, about godparents.
In late 2013, Vesti newspaper reported, citing its sources, that Mishchenko had chosen former Social Policy Minister Natalia Korolevska and former MP Artem Pshonka, the son of the former Prosecutor General, as godparents for his son. Mishchenko promised to sue for this publication, but never did…
The revival of the bandwa
It's telling that, having defected to the victors (the Petro Poroshenko Bloc), S. Mishchenko managed to fully maintain his control over the bureaucratic vertical in the Boryspil district—a vertical without which the existence of the "Boryspil organized crime group" would hardly have been possible. And in this regard, he found the full support of his new partners from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
To this end, S. Mishchenko brought his people into the district structures of Poroshenko's "Solidarity," which had previously existed only on paper.
Mishchenko nominated his assistant, Dmitry Gopanchuk, for the position of head of the Solidarity party organization in Boryspil.
The post of head of the Boryspil district organization of Solidarity is held by Oleh Gerasimenko, a man of the former head of the Party of Regions in the Boryspil district, as well as Mishchenko's godfather, Vladislav Baichas.
Other names on this list include: Ivan Nedogibchenko, Vladislav Baichas, Sergey Baichas, Vladimir Avramchuk, Alexander Matyash, Mikhail Muzyka, Vyacheslav Yevtushenko, Vladimir Soldatenko (who was Mishchenko's assistant), Mykola Kononenko, Andriy Zhuk, Vladimir Khvorostyanko, and other "comrades." Meanwhile, this "gang of comrades" purged the Boryspil District Council website: today, there is no information on the composition of the Party of Regions faction during the Yanukovych era. However, this list has been preserved on paper:
Could this have happened without a decision at the highest level—from Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity party leader? Of course not.
The appearance of these individuals in the ranks of Solidarity outraged patriotic residents of Boryspil: this district center clearly demonstrates who benefited from the "Maidan victory." Why did the presidential forces need to "legalize" the "Boryspil organized crime group," especially on the eve of parliamentary elections? This is a question for Petro Poroshenko himself.
What's significant is that the list of candidates for the local elections on behalf of Mishchenko was formed by Vladislav Baichas, the man who personally received the Order of the Hands of Yanukovych during the first bloody events on the Maidan.
This is Solidarity in action: one of Sergei Mishchenko's godfathers, Artem Pshonka, is wanted and hiding in Moscow; another godfather, the former head of the Boryspil Party of Regions, effectively runs the Boryspil District Council through his protégé, Ivan Nedogibchenko, a member of the Party of Regions.
And lustration did not affect these people.
Nikolai Ulmer
Boryspil Interdistrict Prosecutor Mykola Ulmer, a protégé of the Donetsk clan who also owes his position to S. Mishchenko, also remained in his position. Between 2013 and 2016, members of N. Ulmer's family acquired ownership of 20 properties, including over 5 hectares of land, 6 residential apartments, and 4 parking spaces. The Prosecutor General's Office is currently investigating him (Part 2 of Article 368-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). However, both Ulmer and his wife, Elina Ulmer (Zhiratkova), continue to work as prosecutors, with the latter serving in the Prosecutor General's Office. Therefore, there is no hope for an objective investigation into the activities of this successful couple of prosecutors under the current government.
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The depth of the Boryspil organized crime group's roots can be gauged from the account of well-known volunteer Yuriy Kasyanov, who accidentally crossed paths with the legalized gang at the "generals' dachas" near Kyiv.
According to volunteer Yuriy Kasyanov, who published photo and video materials, Ukrainian Armed Forces generals live no worse than those on the Forbes list.
Below is a post from a volunteer's Facebook blog (slightly edited):
“…The generals of the Ukrainian Armed Forces live in luxury even when there is a crisis and war in the country.
Vile oligarchs aren't necessarily the owners of factories, steamships, and TV channels on the Forbes list. Oligarchs exist in every region—local princes, magnates, and feudal lords living at the expense of the state and local communities. There's no better "business" than seizing power and, using that power, distributing national wealth—land, forests, water, mineral resources, buildings and roads, manufacturing, and services—to their own advantage.
The same thing happens in the army, where the Soviet era has firmly taken root. If a barracks is being renovated, a dacha for a high-ranking military official is being built at the same time. Because the building materials can be divided, and free soldier labor can be enlisted. Or the money allocated for the renovation can be funneled through a shell company owned by the wife, profiting from the difference in the cost of building materials.
If there's land on the training ground, the best plots can be given to the local village council at its own request. They say there's nowhere for the villagers to graze their cattle, farm, or hunt. A tearful paper is prepared, and a coastal strip is cut off from the training ground. Seriously, what's the point of that river for the training ground? To practice river crossing skills, to bathe armored personnel carriers? And what if the expensive equipment sinks?
And so, the dangerous coastal land is handed over to the village council, where it's parceled out to the right people, including, of course, military commanders—as a token of gratitude. Moreover, it's given away free of charge, in strict accordance with Article 121 of the Land Code, which stipulates that every citizen has the right to receive quite substantial plots of land completely free of charge. The land is also leased on a purely symbolic basis to their own companies, who then quietly cut down the public, state-owned forest, which they never grew and have no intention of growing. Where the forest is unsuitable but the sites are suitable, they create "estuary farms" for "fishing and hunting societies," and collect taxes from those who want to fish and rifle through the swamps. The best way to make money is to take it from someone else.
This is how the Baichas brothers "rose" and matured in the field of appropriating public property. Vladislav Mykhailovych Baichas leads the Boryspil Rada. Previously, he did so as an inveterate member of the Party of Regions, and even received a medal from Yanukovych for his hard work in January 2014, when Hrushevsky Street was ablaze. But after the victory of the Maidan, he became frightened and resigned in February. He didn't shoot himself. And rightly so—in November 2015, he was once again elected as head of the district, this time as a member of the Petro Oleksiyovych bloc.
Google reveals that Vladislav Baichas owns Evronefteproduct OJSC and Nice OJSC, both lucrative real estate assets, controls the infrastructure of Boryspil Airport, and "works" closely with his godfather, MP Serhiy Mishchenko. Mishchenko, in turn, is the godfather of fugitive prosecutor Pshonka; remember how Mishchenko shouted from the parliamentary podium that Pshonka was "the prosecutors' father?" In fact, the word "godfather" in Ukrainian politics perfectly corresponds to the criminal-mafia meaning of "brother."
While Vladislav Baichas is the "legal" owner of the Boryspil district, another Baichas, Serhiy Mykhailovych, operates in the shadows, despite being a district deputy representing Strong Ukraine in 2010. Much can be learned about him, but the main point is that the Baichas brothers—his father, and his grandson—own large tracts of land separated from the NSU training ground. The land grab took place sometime between 2000 and 2008, and since then, the boys have settled down nicely—a gated community, a water area, estates, boats, helicopters... The other new owners of the training ground lands are also distinguished and wealthy: former and current prosecutors, military commanders, judges, deputies, businessmen...
It's clear that none of the new owners earned their living through backbreaking labor; invented Newton's new law; or received a plot of land in a picturesque location as a reward for outstanding public service. This is simple, elementary theft.
And then there's greed. "Greed is the undoing of the sucker"—that's what they're all about: stealing exclusive land, building luxurious cottages, flying helicopters "to work," and stationing conscripts at the barrier to guard their gated world. The jerks.
I remember back in the 1990s, our commander—a colonel, a veteran of a local Soviet war, with extensive service, a good salary, a three-room apartment, a dacha, and a car (!)—in other words, the whole package in the post-Soviet reality—would go to the soldiers' canteen to "check the quality of the food," which was simply a free meal. He'd also take food from the canteen home. He'd fill up at the unit's gas station. He'd even steal pens and pencils from the stationery. He's probably still a respected member of society, and his children are "new faces in politics and economics."
It's clear that the land grab at the Stara training ground was carried out "legally," just as our oligarchs "legally" acquired lucrative chunks of the national economy. Formally, on paper, it's legal; there's nothing to cling to. But law doesn't necessarily mean justice, honesty, or humanity. In the Third Reich, for example, it was legal to persecute Jews...
Besides the law, there is also justice. And on the Maidan, we stood, first and foremost, not for the law, but for trampled justice. And the war is not about the triumph of the law, which is not perfect, but about the restoration of justice. I want those who decided that everything is allowed to them "according to the law" to know and always remember this. Hell no! – No one can abolish justice with any law.
Video: General's dachas in the village of Stare from a drone:
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Instead of decisively "cleansing" the "Boryspil organized crime group" immediately after the Revolution of Dignity, the president's team colluded with the criminal underworld. And if only in the Boryspil district alone! This situation is now everywhere in Ukraine. The country feels like it's back in the fall of 2004 or 2013.
Only the situation is radically worse because Ukraine is at war. And if, God forbid, a major war breaks out and the patriots go to the front, they'll be left with THESE in the rear: professional double-dealers, thieves, and traitors.
And something will have to be done about THIS.
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Konstantin Ivanchenko, Argument
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