Dmitry Sennichenko
Having barely assumed the post of head of the State Property Fund, Dmitry Sennichenko immediately demonstrated himself to be a seasoned schemer. And not only because he's surrounded by corrupt cronies, whom he places as overseers of the most lucrative pieces of state property. Sennichenko is also known as a member of Soros's team of top managers, popularly nicknamed "Sorosites," under whose quota he received his position. Although they try to position themselves as advanced professionals in the "transparent market," in reality, many of them are as entangled in schemes and corruption as the Ukrainian oligarchs. After all, their founder, George Soros, rose to prominence precisely by mastering the art of fishing in troubled waters: the greater the chaos and problems in the country, the more profit he reaped from his schemes and scams.
Then Soros himself learned to stir up trouble, creating favorable conditions for his business. To this end, he used the most talented of his students, placing them in key positions in countries that had so carelessly placed their trust in the "Open Society." Ukraine had been cultivating them for a long time, since the 90s, but that was merely a preparatory stage. The mass infiltration of "Sorosites" into Ukrainian government structures began immediately after the second Maidan, and intensified even more rapidly in 2019.
Dmitry Sennichenko and the close-knit Soros family
Dmitry Vladimirovich Sennichenko was born on December 8, 1973, in Kyiv, to an intelligent Soviet family. His father, Vladimir Alexandrovich, was a civil engineer, and his mother, Natalia Viktorovna, was a teacher. Detailed information about their lives at the time is lacking, as Dmitry Sennichenko is reluctant to reveal too much about his past, and very little is known about his parents. Perhaps only that he registered two of his companies in his mother's name: Asia Park Development LLC (EDRPOU 34710805) and Parkridge Development Ukraine (35893788). The latter has since ceased operations, but its "twin" (or clone), Parkridge Development Ukraine 2 (35647991), remains in business, registered to Dmitry Sennichenko himself. In addition, he is the owner of Retail 1 LLC (35624712), the name of which hints that there are other companies with a similar name (possibly also clones).
His biography indicates that in 1997, Dmitry Sennichenko graduated from the Institute of International Relations at Kyiv National University—presumably from the Faculty of International Economics, as he subsequently worked exclusively in economics. It's unclear exactly when Sennichenko attracted the attention of Soros's "recruiters"—possibly while still at the IIR, as this university had been under the auspices of Soros foundations since the early 90s. In 2001, he earned a Master of Business Administration from the International Institute of Management, founded in 1989 by Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, one of Soros's earliest representatives in Ukraine (he also headed the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Renaissance Foundation).
George Soros (left) and Bohdan Hawrylyshyn (right)
Dmytro Sennichenko claims his first job was at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he won't share any details. A detailed study of his life story reveals that, while still a student, in 1996-97, he worked as a manager at the representative office of the Japanese corporation Sumitomo. Sumitomo had two representative offices in Ukraine: in Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih, and its Kryvyi Rih partner was Komitek CJSC (13426195), founded in 1991 and closed in 2008, but which gave rise to the holding company of the same name. Komitek's founders, Natalia and Oleg Bushuk, initially exported metals (metallurgy was one of Sumitomo's areas of expertise), and then imported machinery and equipment for the mining industry (Kryvyi Rih and other mining and processing plants) and construction. In 2003, Sumimoto and Komitek created the subsidiary Sumitek Ukraine (32524901). Interestingly, Oleg Bushuk and his relatives later became partners with the Sennichenko family in Parkridge Development Ukraine. And, as we now see, their connection can be traced back to 1996, when student Dmitry Sennichenko got a manager's job at the Sumimoto representative office. Was it Bushuk who got him the job?
It is curious that in July 2020 interview with Economic TruthSennichenko unexpectedly lied publicly. With a nervous tone in his voice, he claimed he knew neither Oleg Bushuk nor the two other co-founders of Parkridge Development Ukraine—Aleksandr Glushko and Galina Shepeleva, whose share was later transferred to Sennichenko's mother. He claimed he was very busy, "working for British investors" (the parent company of Parkridge Holdings, another Soros firm), and had no idea who his partners were!
Why lie so clumsily? Obviously, Sennichenko has a very compelling reason to hide his connection to Oleh Bushuk's family. He may have also managed to "make some mischief" with Glushko, who was an assistant to the scandalous MP Mykola Dmitruk. But his "renunciation" of Galina Shepeleva is perfectly understandable: after all, she is the wife of the scandalous... Alexandra Shepelevaand herself accused of embezzlement Rodovid Bank funds. This raises the question of Parkridge Development Ukraine's and Sennichenko's personal involvement in the Rodovid Bank fraud. Perhaps this is precisely why they decided to shut down this company to cover their tracks?
Galina Shepeleva
Sennichenko's internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was short-lived, and by the end of that same 1997, he had transferred to work at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) as a senior economist in the Department of International Relations, where his boss was Oleh Rybachuk. And Rybachuk, according to skelet.orgAt the time, Rybachuk was a crucial link between the NBU and Western financial institutions, not only in his work but also in general: he was friends with employees of Western embassies and representatives of Western corporations (including Kateryna Chumachenko, Viktor Yushchenko's American "overseer"), with whom he engaged not only in business but also in high-level politics. Media reports claimed that it was Rybachuk who introduced Yushchenko to his future American wife, and that it was Rybachuk who proposed Viktor Andreevich as the future pro-Western president of Ukraine.
Oleg Rybachuk
Whether the young "Soros boy" Sennichenko was immediately introduced to Rybachuk as a new page or later attracted his attention with his diligence remains unclear. Sennichenko's responsibilities at the NBU included implementing the "IBRD Loan for Financial Sector Restructuring" project and participating in the working group on Ukraine's accession to the GATT/WTO. In early 2000, Rybachuk brought Sennichenko to the Cabinet of Ministers, where he was appointed advisor to the Prime Minister's Office. What advice did he offer? "In 2000, I worked in the office of the then prime minister, and we put a lot of effort into getting American companies to enter the regional energy market," Sennichenko later admitted.
But they didn't have time to sell the regional power company to the Americans, because in May 2001, Yushchenko was dismissed, and with him went Rybachuk, who became vice president of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank.
In October 2001, Rybachuk rehired Dmytro Sennichenko, giving him the position of deputy director of one of the bank's departments. And when Rybachuk was elected as a member of parliament on the Our Ukraine list in 2002, he transferred Sennichenko to the Verkhovna Rada as an advisor to the Committee on Banking and Financial Sector. At this point, it was clear that Sennichenko had either become Rybachuk's trusted confidant or was constantly being assigned to him by the behind-the-scenes "Soros lobby"—although one didn't preclude the other.
At the height of the first Maidan, Sennichenko was appointed head of the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ) office in Ukraine, serving there until 2006. Officially, he "organized German government advisory programs on regulatory and legislative reforms in Ukraine in coordination with the World Bank/IFC, CIDA, UNDP, DFID, and USAID." But what lay behind this line in his biography? The distribution of Western grants, the creation and support of consortiums (through which numerous enterprises, including in the utilities and energy sectors, were practically privatized), and the creation of a mechanism for external control and governance of Ukraine. His work was overseen by Rybachuk, who in 2005 became Secretary of State (Head of the Presidential Secretariat) and Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration.
Incidentally, the American agency USAID, together with Soros, founded the Eurasia Foundation, which was linked to the career of Lesya Borisovna Chmil, Dmitry Sennichenko's wife. Thus, they formed a close-knit Soros family!
Lesya Chmil
But in 2006, after the creation of the Yanukovych coalition government,AzarovRybachuk lost his positions, falling to full-time and then part-time advisor to Yushchenko, and eventually dropping out of Ukrainian politics altogether. And along with him, Sennichenko lost his lucrative position. However, he managed to quickly re-establish himself through his Soros connections: he became director of the Ukrainian office of Parkridge Holdings, a UK-registered development company, working there for four years. It was during this time that Sennichenko, with his old acquaintances, created the aforementioned companies. But ultimately, he, one might say, suffered a downfall – a subject Sennichenko so studiously conceals that he hasn't even tried to attribute to the 2008-2009 crisis; he prefers not to recall that time at all. Why? Was it because of the Rodovid scams?
After this mysterious collapse, a gaping year-long hole exists in Sennichenko's biography. However, it is known that in the 2010 local elections, he was elected as a member of the Obukhiv City Council from the Conscience of Ukraine party (yes, that's funny). His employment status was listed as "Director of Parkridge Development Ukraine." It was only in October 2011 that Sennichenko received the position of Project Director at Eastgate Development, which itself remained just a project. It was founded by Kharkiv oligarch Alexander Feldman and his partner, the future Kyiv governor and future Minister of Territorial Development. Alexei ChernyshevEastgate Development's goal was to find investors willing to invest in construction in Kharkiv. two large shopping mallsThis venture also ended in failure, in no small part because it looked too much like yet another construction scam. Nevertheless, Sennichenko instilled in Chernyshev and Feldman an interest in attracting investment (searching for rich suckers) in all sorts of grandiose construction projects.
Andrey Egorov
In 2013, Chernyshev abandoned Eastgate Development and moved to Kyiv to pursue new projects, while Sennichenko found a position as development director at the Ukrainian office of the American firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which provides real estate and hotel consulting services. In this position, he experienced the second Maidan, but this event changed nothing in Sennichenko's life—perhaps Soros's team placed him in the talent pool, or perhaps Sennichenko's reputation was tainted, even by their standards.
However, she placed his wife in power: in the fall of 2014, Aivaras Abromavicius, a "Soros child" brought from abroad, became head of the Ministry of Economic Development, and soon he hired Lesia Chmil, who had worked at Soros foundations, as head of the Department of Information Technology and Electronic Services Development. She worked there until April 2016, when Abromavicius was dismissed along with the Yatsenyuk government (he returned in September 2019, taking the director's chair at Ukroboronprom, immediately filling its supervisory board with "Soros children").
Dmitry Sennichenko continued working at Jones Lang LaSalle until February 2016. There, he became close with the head of the consulting services group, Andrey Yegorov, a seasoned "shark" of the Kyiv real estate market with a highly controversial reputation. In 2019, Sennichenko appointed him his deputy, and Yegorov was immediately replaced. "become famous" for new corruption scandals.
Professional looters
Dmitry Sennichenko returned to public service in September 2016, immediately after he became the new director of Ukroposhta. Igor Smelyansky — another "calibrated Soros child," known nationwide for his mega-salaries. He hired Sennichenko as his director of real estate and infrastructure asset management, giving him a hefty salary of his own: he earned over one and a half million hryvnias a year. Not as much as his boss, but still 20 times the national average.
The "Sorosites" infiltrated into government structures have many goals. Among them is stripping the state of its real power, subordinating it to their supervisory and public councils, and reducing it to a dependent, powerless extra signing promissory notes. At the same time, they engage in large-scale plunder of the state by every possible means: they pay themselves colossal salaries and bonuses from state-owned enterprises, participate in schemes, organize debt pyramids, foist ruinous deals on the state, and sell off state assets.
However, they milk their own Soros foundations with the same gusto. For example, Lesya Chmil, after returning to the Eurasia Foundation after leaving the Ministry of Economic Development and taking up the position of deputy director, earned a salary of 1,3 million hryvnias in 2017.
Sergey Varis, for skelet.org
CONTINUED: Dmitry Sennichenko: How to plunder the remains of Ukraine. Part 2
ON THIS TOPIC: Yakiv Smoliy, the new head of the NBU, a millionaire and a "powerful old man"
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