Dmitry Isaenko
This quiet and inconspicuous former official continuously siphoned off budget funds and plundered state land for over twenty years, under four presidents, despite Maidan protests, crises, and war. Now, Dmytro Isayenko continues to run his not-so-small business under Zelenskyy, despite having traded his official position for a seat as a member of parliament from the Opposition Platform - For Life party. A veteran of Ukrainian corruption and one of the founders of Kyiv's construction mafia, Isayenko is now also part of a large-scale "anti-Klychkov conspiracy" that involves both "servants of the people" and the people. Viktor Medvedchuk...
The main goal of this conspiracy is to replace Vitali Klitschko to his tame mayor, through whom a large-scale redistribution of spheres of influence and control will be carried out. Each participant pursues their own interests, and Dmitry Isaenko's are crystal clear: with his partner. Andrey Vavrysh He wants to become Kyiv's leading developer, getting his hands on the most lucrative part of the construction business—budget projects that can net him colossal profits.
This man's greed knows no bounds: after all, Dmitry Isaenko and his companies are already a major player in Kyiv's construction market and one of Ukraine's richest former officials. This year he declared 151,7 million hryvnias in cash alone, making him one of the top three MPs with the largest amount of cash!
The "Khatynka" of Ukrainian official Dmitry Isaenko
Dmytro Isayenko first came to the attention of Ukrainian journalists back in 2015, after his controversial illegal acquisition of ATO participant status. This led to his dismissal from his position as Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing, and Utilities, and at the same time, a report about him aired on Denys Bigus's program "Nashi Groshi." Ukrainians learned that the modest official had declared over 20 million hryvnias in annual income, that his family owned luxurious mansions, and the intricacies of his corruption schemes.
This unexpected "popularity" greatly upset Isaenko, who had spent his entire life trying to keep a low profile, where he had so comfortably hoarded his millions. He tried to make sure no one remembered him anymore. And now, after five years, he himself has reminded people of his existence with a mountain of declared cash—forcing Ukrainians to wonder once again how he "earned" it all. And how, indeed?
What can be stolen at a construction site?
During Soviet times, the engineering and construction troops were the most unpopular. They were met with zero respect from others, no romanticism, and the only achievements they could achieve were labor, and even then only at the end of the five-year plan. Combat awards were elusive. Construction battalion soldiers had a reputation for being weak, and their officers for being alcoholics. However, for resourceful individuals, the construction battalion offered ample opportunity, and construction officers became some of the first "businessmen in uniform." While officers of the Western Group of Forces, for example, imported consumer goods to the Soviet Union, learning the basics of commerce, military engineers made a good living stealing construction materials and engaging in various odd jobs. That's why our hero, a practical man in every way, chose this path.
Dmitry Valerievich Isaenko was born on August 30, 1967, in the town of Rechitsa in the Gomel region of Belarus. He told no one anything about his parents, childhood, or youth, just as he remains silent about his life in general. He even painstakingly erased any mention of himself, his relatives, or their companies from all available databases—an unprecedented level of secrecy! However, it can be concluded that Isaenko excelled in school because, after graduating, he entered the Leningrad Higher Military Civil Engineering School (now the Military Engineering and Technical University). Not only was this the oldest military engineering university, but it also enjoyed elite status in the USSR: young lieutenant engineers were assigned from it not to build barracks in the tundra, but to the navy's most important coastal installations. Even in the worst-case scenario, Isaenko risked being sent to Murmansk or Severomorsk (where there were good bonuses and special rations), but he managed to pull out the trump card – in 1989, he was assigned to Crimea, to Balaklava, to the Directorate of Specialized Works, as an assistant to the head of assembly group No. 241.
By the time the Black Sea Fleet was divided between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Dmitry Isaenko himself had become the head of the group, and three years later, he headed Construction and Assembly Section (CAS) No. 22. During this period, Isaenko received Ukrainian citizenship, and, according to sources, Skelet.Org, obtained a Russian passport. Sources also report that in the 90s, Isaenko pulled off several successful scams and embezzlements, which allowed him to amass initial capital and establish connections among the "big shots." Initially, this involved selling stolen building materials and metal from warehouses and looted military facilities—in partnership with those who managed these warehouses and facilities, as well as with the participation of semi-criminal Crimean businessmen, who helped sell them profitably. His "side hustle," sometimes illegal and sometimes legal, continued to generate income: private construction in Crimea revived, and demand for construction equipment and specialists, as well as concrete and brick, was high. Since the mid-90s, when the army began to rapidly downsize and the state began allocating funds for the construction of housing for officers, Isaenko found a new source of income—participation in the "carve-up" of valuable Crimean land and the "embezzlement" of budget funds. For example, during the construction of a major project, it was always possible to "quietly" carve out a few plots of land for private houses, or a larger chunk for a mini-hotel. The icing on the cake were the corrupt subcontracting schemes that Isaenko mastered with the help of private firms registered to cronies: his construction department would hand over the work and funds to them, after which the money would be embezzled, the firms would go bankrupt, and the construction site would become a protracted project or even abandoned. This subsequently became Dmitry Isaenko's main "business."
All of this helped him make a dizzying leap in 1999 from the head of Construction and Installation Department No. 22 in Balaklava straight to the deputy head of the Ministry of Defense's Centralized Specialized Construction Department (CSCD) in Kyiv. One can imagine the connections involved and the amount of money involved! It's no wonder Isayenko is extremely reluctant to recall his Crimean service, lest he inadvertently blurt out names or scandals.
Dmitry Isaenko: Big scams of a big boss
The Central Socialist Construction Agency (CSSA) oversaw all construction projects for the Ministry of Defense, and accordingly, their funding was channeled through it. Dmitry Isaenko, who served as deputy head of the CSSA from 1999 to 2002 and head of the CSSA from 2002 to 2006, approved these projects, selected general contractors, and foisted his own subcontractors on them. And although during these years of the Defense Ministry's meager budget, very little money was allocated for military construction, mostly for facility renovations and officer housing, Isaenko managed to profit handsomely from them. Let's list the scams of his that have come to light.
One of the most high-profile and protracted scandals was the case surrounding the Black Sea Fleet Club (BSF) stadium in Sevastopol, located at 4 Bastionnaya Street (former military town No. 257). It began in 2004 with yet another of Isaenko's land deals: initially, as head of the Central Socialist Construction Department, he signed a contract with the Sevastopol firm OOO Briz-Nord (its founders were old acquaintances of Isaenko's from the 90s) to reconstruct the stadium. However, key changes were then made to the contract. Now, the subject of the contract was the "share" construction of a residential complex on the stadium site: the Ministry of Defense would hand over the stadium site as a shareholder, and Briz-Nord would build a commercial residential complex on it and allocate 40 apartments for military personnel. However, just six months later, Briz-Nord decided to pay the Ministry of Defense with apartments... in Dzhankoy and the Kharkiv region, and old ones in need of renovation! Naturally, their market value was significantly lower than new housing in Sevastopol. And the 3,55 hectares of the stadium's territory were transferred to Briz-Nord. Moreover, the stadium's transfer agreement was signed in the name of the Minister of Defense. Anatoly Gritsenko Dmitry Isaenko personally signed it, providing power of attorney No. 2369. As it later turned out, the power of attorney was… fake; however, during Gritsenko's tenure as Defense Ministry director, many of his subordinates held fake powers of attorney. It's worth remembering the swindler here. Vyacheslav Kredisova, who, using exactly the same scheme, stole the stadium in Odessa from the Ukrainian Armed Forces!
However, the local community spoke out in favor of preserving the KChF stadium, the protests beganThey were supported by the fleet's leadership and the Ukrainian Football Federation, and lawsuits began pouring into the courts. And then, during the trial, it turned out that Isaenko had cheated. A criminal case was opened, in which he was a defendant. Isaenko secured a hearing in Kyiv's Pechersky District Court, where he appeared with a stance of deep indignation at the shadow cast on him. The judges may have been "greased" in advance, because although Isaenko's guilt was clearly stated in the placing of the courtThe decision didn't require a new case to be opened directly against him. And then they brought the matter to the Prosecutor General's Office, which remained deaf and blind. As for the stadium, the battle over it between the state and Briz-Nord continued until 2013, and then, well, you know what happened next...
A similar scam was pulled off by Isaenko a little earlier in the capital itself. On December 31, 2003 (right before midnight, perhaps?), the Ministry of Defense, represented by the head of the Central Socialist Construction Department, Dmitry Isaenko, and PJSC Trust PivdenZakhidTransBud signed Agreement No. 7/38-03 for equity participation in the construction of housing at 4 Podvysotskoho Street, on the site of Military Town No. 2 (a 19,55-hectare plot). Initially, the agreement stipulated that 25% of the apartments in the new building would be allocated to the military, but Isaenko later amended it, allocating only 5% of the apartments in Kyiv to the military, with the rest being distributed across various regions of Ukraine. In other words, instead of new and expensive housing in the capital, Ukraine's defenders were allocated used apartments in the outskirts of Mukhosransk. But the Ministry of Defense still had to fork over 19,55 hectares of prime Kyiv land for them! The contract was then revised, and the oligarch's Stroyspetsservis LLC became the contractor instead of PivdenZakhidTransBuda. Vasyl Khmelnytsky, which began construction of the Novopecherskie Lipki residential complex on this territory in 2007. And finally, with Isaenko's participation, Defense Ministry officials agreed (in exchange for generous kickbacks) to reduce the 85,000 square meters of housing allocated to the military under the contract to 51,000 square meters. You can find out more in special material about large-scale thefts in the Ministry of Defense in 2004-2017.
Sometimes, it wasn't individual apartments, but entire buildings that were stolen from military personnel! This fate befell a building constructed in the village of Reshetylivka in the Poltava region. The story behind this fraud goes like this: in 2003, the Central Social Security Administration (CSSA) commissioned its subordinate state enterprise, "Lesa Oborony," to build a 30-apartment building in the village for officers from a nearby military unit. The director of "Lesa Oborony," Andriy Zernov (an Isaenko confidant), signed a contract with the private firm "Kvant"—which he himself had founded! The CSSA allocated 1,91 million hryvnias ($380) for the construction, transferring the funds to "Lesa Oborony," which then transferred the funds to "Kvant." The plan was for "Kvant" to build the building, "Lesa Oborony" to register ownership of the apartments, and then transfer them to the CSSA. But this didn’t happen: first, the building’s completion date was postponed until 2005, and then Quantum terminated its contract with Lesy Ukrainy (through Zernovy) and appropriated all 30 apartments for itself, reselling them to Teplostroy LLC at a commercial price.
While managing tens of hectares of land, thousands of apartments, and six-figure sums, Dmytro Isaenko wasn't above petty theft. For example, in 2005, the state-owned enterprise "Lesa Oborony" purchased 2911 steel bathtubs for military apartments and barracks for a total of 925,000 hryvnias. The seller was JSC Scientific and Production Company "Stroitelny Kapital" (SPC)—a company now closed and its founders have changed several times, but back then, it belonged to... Isaenko's wife. But corruption wasn't the issue! The price for the bathtubs was very low (the cheapest one in the store was 50% more expensive), but the soldiers never got any: Isaenko's wife's company simply scammed them, stealing almost a million hryvnias (US$185,000 at the time). A criminal case was also opened on this matter, but it, too, was closed.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Dmitry Isaenko: The ruinous builder and his 150 million in cash. Part 2
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