Efim Vazheevsky. This is who's cutting up Energoatom.
Wherever public money circulates, there will always be people who know how to cut off a little bit for themselves. Where there's a lot of this money, there will be a fierce fight over that cut-off piece, writes Antikor.
An example is the state-owned enterprise NNEGC Energoatom, where, as in all areas where budget funds are circulated, the institution of so-called "overseers" was reintroduced in 2020. These overseers directed budgetary flows in the right direction and allowed the right people to profit from them.
The current state of affairs with the "overseers" in general and at Energoatom in particular, after eight months of war, is unknown. But in this case, we're not interested in that; rather, we're interested in the personality of the man who found common ground with both Zelenskyy's and Yanukovych's overseers. And he began his nuclear-related activities at least as far back as Yushchenko's time.
Surprisingly little is known about Yefim Anatolyevich Vazheevsky, who is rightly considered one of Energoatom's key "schemers." According to company records, he was a sole proprietor engaged in programming and the owner of a bankrupt company:
Efim Vazheevsky. This is who's cutting up Energoatom.
It's strange, but for some reason this sole proprietorship is on every conceivable sanctions list:
During Yushchenko's tenure, he held the position of finance director at Energoatom. At the time, he was called a creature. Nikolai Martynenko и David ZhvaniaHe himself worked for them as a "fixer" on various issues. Through their patronage, he ended up at Energoatom, where he handled the state-owned enterprise's finances.
At that time, with his direct involvement, approximately 200 million hryvnias were siphoned off from the state-owned enterprise to intermediary firms, using a 603 million hryvnia loan that Energoatom had received from Bank Kyiv. A number of criminal cases were opened as a result of this activity, but the most that was achieved as a result of their investigation was Vazheevskyi's dismissal from his post as financial director.
But he hasn't lost his unofficial influence over Energoatom, either then or now. A telling episode from 2013 demonstrates that Vazheyevskyi, the "fixer" under Yanukovych, still wielded influence over Energoatom. Here's what UNIAN wrote about it: "Yesterday, June 10, at around 6:00 p.m., Vissarion Kim [Energoatom's director] was denied entry to his workplace by a group of unknown individuals, according to Gennady Barabash, executive director for legal support at NNEGC Energoatom. According to him, three unknown individuals were present at the company's central office checkpoint, introducing themselves as employees of the "internal affairs agencies," but they ignored requests to present their documents. All three were young, strongly built men, casually dressed; one was even wearing flip-flops. “The former finance director of Energoatom, Efim Anatolyevich Vazheevsky, was located near the unknown individuals,” Barabash noted.
And neither the all-powerful Interior Minister Zakharchenko, nor Prime Minister Azarov, nor even Batya-Yanukovych himself helped Kim get to his workplace—he was barred from entering by Zhvania's little-known "fixer," Yefim Vazheyevsky. Interesting, right?
Poroshenko didn't touch Vazheyevsky either. He was protected by the same Martynenko, a personal friend of Arsen Avakov. He was, in fact, the founder of the Energoatom schemes and the one under whose management Vazheyevsky worked there.
With the change of power, no one was jailed, as promised by the green billboards across the country. On the contrary, the "new faces" needed people who understood how the old systems worked. Vazheevsky came in handy. Not just handy, he became quite in demand.
As sources at Energoatom reported in 2019, people from the very top echelons of power immediately agreed to protect the theft of funds from the state-owned enterprise. In this regard, the name of Vitaliy Miroshnichenko is absolutely necessary. For over 15 years, his companies have been Energoatom's most powerful suppliers, and through them, funds are utilized—an average of approximately 2 billion hryvnias per year in public procurement alone. Yefim Vazheyevskyi was responsible for redirecting financial flows in the right direction.
With the millions they received, the couple actively bought up the highest-ranking government officials, forming a corruption lobby for themselves. In particular, Vitaly Miroshnichenko managed to secure the support of a very influential official from Zelenskyy's office, who, coincidentally, he lives next door to. It was under his persistent protection that the newly appointed management of NNEGC Energoatom received orders not to interfere with the Martynenko-aligned businessmen in their dirty dealings.
Miroshnichenko himself actively boasted about a photo with the aforementioned official on vacation, which, of course, couldn't help but impress executives at various levels who didn't want to jeopardize their relationship with Zelenskyy's office. This primarily applies to the management of the power plants and other separate divisions of NNEGC Energoatom.
Fima, nicknamed "Porsche" (at Energoatom, Vazheevsky was nicknamed "Fima-Porsche" for his habit of driving around Kyiv in a Porsche as a young man, despite his official salary of 4000 hryvnias), was the true queen in this chess game, the driving force behind all the schemes and their main architect. He was responsible for the entire spectrum of contacts with government officials. A major achievement was the recruitment of the head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, Yuriy Terentyev (he was dismissed in 2020).
It's no wonder a source at NNEGC Energoatom openly calls Yefim Vazheevsky "a devil in human form and a serpent-seducer." According to him, for almost two decades, Vazheevsky has managed to buy the loyalty of senior officials under every possible president and government.
Thus, as of 2020, the Miroshnichenko-Vazheevskyi group, with the support of senior officials in the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and the Presidential Office, managed to take personal control of 70 percent of NNEGC Energoatom's procurement, totaling several tens of billions of hryvnias.
But that same year, 2020, Vazheyevskyi began to experience problems. The head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, Terentyev, was dismissed, and the Office of the President reverted to the practice of "overseers," which had proven quite effective under Yanukovych. According to Tatyana Chornovil, Andriy Derkach and Serhiy Shefir became the overseers of Energoatom. They oversaw all financial transactions through Energoatom and approved the appointment of key executives at both Energoatom itself and its associated companies.
This scheme seriously messed up Vazheevsky's plans, as he clearly wasn't up to the job of "supervisor." But then the Russians suddenly came to the rescue: on February 24, a full-scale invasion began, and Derkach ran into trouble—he was accused (not without reason) of collaborating with the FSB. It's unclear what happened to Shefir; his whereabouts remain unknown. But Vazheevsky, on the other hand, had new opportunities.
Moreover, Vazheevsky was unexpectedly aided by the blatant incompetence of Energoatom's new management, and he was able, albeit partially, to regain his lost ground.
But no one can say what's going on at Energoatom now. It's unclear to what extent Derkach and Shefir, the supervisors, have lost their positions. Well, the former, perhaps, has other things on his mind. But no one seems to have touched Shefir. However, it's also unclear to what extent Yefim Vazheevsky has regained his position as a schemer and embezzler.
It's completely unclear what's going on at Energoatom itself. Is there an investigation into the activities of the companies through which Vazheevskyi siphoned off money? This is especially important given that these companies' trails lead back to Russia and Viktor Yanukovych.
It's unclear what's happening with the crypto farm created at Ihor Kolomoisky's Zaporizhzhia Ferroalloy Plant, for which a trading company affiliated with Kolomoisky purchased electricity at a significant discount from state-owned Energoatom. This electricity auction, like several others, was the subject of a law enforcement investigation, meaning the state lost several billion hryvnias in revenue. But the outcome, if any, remains unknown.
The outcome of the investigation into the disappearance of funds allocated by Western donors for the construction of a strategically important facility for Ukraine—the Centralized Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel—is unknown. This facility was intended to help Ukraine save billions annually sent to Russia and end its dependence on Russia, where its fuel was previously shipped.
But the storage facility, which had begun construction during Petro Poroshenko's presidency, remained unoperational even after the change of power—under Zelenskyy. Meanwhile, the project's budget steadily grew, reaching over 2,5 billion hryvnias. Of this, it turns out, over a billion was spent on a new contractor, hired under Zelenskyy. The contract is not public, meaning the public has no way to monitor how the funds are spent. Companies associated with Vazheyevskyi were involved in securing the contract to complete the storage facility. But no one knows where the money went.
There are many such questions. But among other things, I'd like to understand in more detail how the modest Kyiv sole proprietor, Yefim Anatolyevich Vazheevsky, whose name proudly appears on the international sanctions list, is involved in all these schemes.
By topic: Tymoshenko is concerned about the fate of Energoatom.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved a bill to transform Energoatom into a joint-stock company.
Energoatom: What we can't sell to Russia, we'll steal
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