Gennady Moskal: the many-faced foul-mouthed general
Ukrainians have become accustomed to the fact that if Gennady Moskal's bald head appears on television, they need to shoo the children away and brace themselves for sensational revelations laced with foul language. Few realize that this man is a living example of our misconception that decent people can be found among politicians and officials. If you still believe that Moskal can defeat corruption and restore order, that he'll expose everyone, then know this: he's not even who he claims to be!
Who are you, Gennady Gennadievich?
The man known to all Ukrainians today as " Gennady Gennadievich Moskal " was born on December 11, 1950, in the village of Zadubrovka, Zastavnivka District, Chernivtsi Oblast. His parents, Gennady Khadeevich Gaifulin and Stepaniya Pavlovna Moskal, immediately wondered what surname to give their son. However, Gennady Gennadievich once let it slip that this didn't happen immediately, but two years after his birth, when his father supposedly died. Why supposedly? Because subsequent events revealed that Gennady Gennadievich had thoroughly obfuscated the information about his childhood and youth, and when asked directly by journalists, he usually replied that he didn't want to remember those "difficult years."
So, the newborn Gennady Gennadievich was given his mother's surname, Moskal, and registered as Ukrainian—perhaps in the belief that his father's Tatar surname would bring him some trouble in the future. It's worth remembering that it was the early 50s, just a few years after all Tatars had been deported from Crimea, accused of aiding Hitler's "little gray men." People back then often played it safe, since "trouble" in the days of the "Father of Nations" meant not a fine, but expulsion or even imprisonment. And so little Gena Moskal entered his big life.
Gennady Moskal in the 60s
In 1966, he completed eight years of school and entered the Chernivtsi Railway Technical School. While studying, he received a deferment from military service, thereby avoiding the risk of being drafted for the final three years. The deferment was valid until the fall of 1970, so Gennady not only completed technical school but also worked for several months as an inspector in the rolling stock department of the Ternopil branch of the Lviv Railway.
After the army, Moskal continued working as a railcar inspector, but soon grew tired of hammering axle boxes. In 1973, he arrived in Chernivtsi, found a job in the criminal investigation department of the Leninsky District Department of Internal Affairs, and enrolled in the Kyiv Higher Police School by correspondence. Upon graduating in 1976, he received the rank of lieutenant and the title of inspector. It was then that he met Orisya (Arina) Teofilovna Linskaya, a young student at the Cooperative Technical School, born in 1957. A year later (November 12, 1977), they married – and that's when the real mystery began!
Gennady Moskal (at the table) during work at the Leninsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Chernivtsi
The fact is that, after marrying Orisa Linskaya, Gennady Moskal decided to take her last name. This is evidenced by the original and photocopied documents available: the marriage deed, the marriage certificate, and the birth certificate of their first child, Irina (December 15, 1978). These documents clearly state that Gennady Moskal, upon marrying, took his wife's last name and became Gennady Linsky—and it was under this last name that he was registered as the father of his daughter.
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There was nothing incriminating about this—many husbands have taken their wives' surnames! However, the crux of the scandal that erupted many years later was that Mr. Linsky wanted to become Moskal again. However, for some reason, he didn't do so in the legally prescribed manner—which is quite odd for an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover, there are reports that Gennady Gennadievich simply kept his old passport with the surname Moskal, receiving a new one with the surname Linsky. Having two passports under two different surnames is the dream of any criminal or con artist, but why would a criminal investigation inspector need it? According to Skelet.Org, Gennady Gennadievich never answered this question because he never admitted to manipulating his surnames. Meanwhile, one day (sometime in the late 80s or early 90s), he simply hid his passport under the name Linsky, pulled out a passport under the name Moskal, and continued to live and pursue a successful career under his new, old name. And it was as if he didn't realize he was creating a serious problem for himself.
Captain G.G. Linsky
(Moskal)
With the dawn of the new century, journalists became interested in the brave general's past, suddenly discovering that... Gennady Moskal simply didn't exist! This was the legal implication: since Gennady Linsky hadn't officially changed his name, he remained Linsky. But this also meant that all decrees and orders appointing Gennady Moskal to high-ranking positions in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and regional state administrations were invalid—as were all orders signed by Moskal! Likewise, their submitted candidate documents for parliamentary seats were deemed "deliberately false," and his parliamentary mandate and vote in the Verkhovna Rada of the 6th and 7th convocations were deemed "bogus."
A worried Moskal-Linsky couldn't think of anything more clever than to try to "cut off loose ends": he began urgently correcting his old documents through complaints to the Ministry of Justice and lawsuits. In all cases, the basis was his claim that in the 70s, civil registry office employees made terrible mistakes (several in a row?), for some reason registering him as Linsky. And really, why? Was it really against his will—after all, his names were on the marriage and birth certificates! And had the Ministry of Internal Affairs employee really failed to notice this "terrible error" for so many years and not found the time to correct it sooner? Gennady Gennadievich's "arguments" were so unconvincing that his case was rejected everywhere, including by the Chernivtsi District Administrative Court (October 2013). Thus, the court officially established that Gennady Gennadievich's real surname was Linsky, not Moskal.
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The court's decision provided official grounds for stripping Moskal of his parliamentary mandate, which he had obtained "fraudulently," and for initiating a series of criminal cases under the statute of fraud. However, just a month later, Euromaidan erupted in Kyiv, and Gennady Moskal, a deputy from the Front for Change – Batkivshchyna faction, could no longer be touched, as this would have been considered repression against opposition leaders. He himself hastened to head the temporary commission created by the opposition to investigate illegal actions during Euromaidan (primarily those of the authorities and security forces), which granted him additional immunity. After February 2014, understandably, the "unfortunate oversight" involving Moskal-Linsky was quickly forgotten. Soon after, he received the important post of governor of the conflict-torn Luhansk Oblast—where he was well remembered for a similar appointment in 2005.
Gennady Moskal, the Crimean "Bashmaki" and the Dnipropetrovsk homeless
But let's go back to the more distant past.
During his twenty years of nearly flawless service in Chernivtsi, Gennady Gennadievich rose significantly through the ranks. From 1978, he was a senior inspector in the criminal investigation department of the Chernivtsi Regional Executive Committee's Internal Affairs Directorate (previously, the police reported to local authorities). After graduating from the Moscow Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1984, he became deputy head of the Leninsky District Department of Internal Affairs. From 1986, he became head of the criminal investigation department of the Chernivtsi Regional Executive Committee's Internal Affairs Directorate. The chronicles of this time do not preserve any of his "exploits"—except for the scam involving the names. However, there is information that in 1992-94... Gennady Moskal, as a visiting "professor," lectured on law at Chernivtsi University, where he met students Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the Burbak brothers ( read more about them in Maxim Burbak: How Chernivtsi Residents Sat on Donetsk's "Golden Toilet" ).
In 1995, Gennady Moskal was rotated to Uzhgorod as the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs department in the Transcarpathian region.
This was his first experience working outside his native Chernivtsi Oblast, and its results were not widely publicized. However, given that the local "tsimbor" mafia there continued to thrive during these years, it's safe to say Moskal didn't interfere too much. However, his subsequent appointment as head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (1997-2000) made him famous throughout Ukraine as a police general with a two-faced image. On the one hand, gullible ordinary people came to believe Moskal was an implacable fighter against organized crime. On the other hand, rumors spread throughout the country about a cruel, cynical, and corrupt general who patronized organized crime.
Moskal's most "innocent pranks" in Crimea were scams involving departmental funds. According to Skelet.Org , the general used money intended for personnel rations to purchase household appliances and consumer goods from covert firms, which he then handed out to police officers in lieu of cash. Food products (cereals, sugar, and butter) were purchased through the Titan company (in Armyansk), where Moskal's relative allegedly worked, and given to rank-and-file Interior Ministry employees as part of their salaries. Those who openly protested were quickly fired, while a 36-apartment building in Alushta, built with public funds for Crimean Tatars, was "privatized" for Moskal's inner circle. But that was just the tip of the iceberg!
According to sources, General Moskal, upon arriving in Crimea, encountered a protracted war between the peninsula's two main organized crime groups, known as "Bashmaki" and "Salem." And, instead of mercilessly eradicating the organized crime that effectively controlled Crimean life, he exploited it. Of the major Crimean gangsters, only Sergei Voronkov (Voronok) was "put away." Meanwhile, Lev Mirimsky began his successful political career.
Even the all-knowing public can't tell us what Moskal's personal goals were. There's only incomplete information about how exactly he did it. First, the new head of the Crimean police established direct and very fruitful contact with the leaders of organized crime groups. Crimeans told terrifying stories of how the "Bashmaki" and "Salem" gangs helped Moskal build successful statistics in the fight against crime by turning him in on competitors and small-time "Uroks"—who were blamed for all the serious crimes on the peninsula. And when the number of "petty" criminals dwindled, the police would simply snatch drunken passersby in the evening and torture them into "confessions."
Secondly, sources reported Moskal's close ties with the Salem gang after Voronkov's arrest, which subsequently played a key role in the defeat of their rivals, the Bashmaki gang. Among the Salem gang members he knew, with whom Moskal was even seen at parties in Simferopol restaurants, were the crime boss Gradov, the future leader of the Russian Community of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov (nicknamed "Goblin"), and businesswoman Irina Bartenyeva, whose husband was a member of Gradov's gang. Witnesses later reported that Aksyonov became the last surviving Salem gang member thanks to Moskal, whose personal informant (snitch) he was. In 2014-2015, appointed by Putin as head of annexed Crimea, Aksyonov thanked his former "boss": he issued a very long list of Ukrainian politicians who were banned from entering Crimea, but Gennady Moskal was not among them.
Vladimir Putin and Sergei Aksyonov
Barteneva, however, owned a number of businesses and firms belonging to the Salem group, including the Uchan-Su restaurant, Kompromiss LLC, and Yuzhny Dom LLC. Serious scandals, including bloody murders, flared around these businesses. The scale of these scandals reached Kyiv—or rather, it was brought there by Gennady Moskal, who, in addition to serving as Crimea's chief of police, also served as Yuriy Kravchenko's deputy minister of internal affairs. Rumors swirled that Kravchenko, Moskal, and Barteneva formed a "fatal triangle," not a love triangle, but a business one. It all culminated in Barteneva's murder in November 2001: her body was found on Mount Ai-Petri, shot with two pistols, one of which was allegedly registered as Gennady Moskal's service weapon. Naturally, the pistol was reported stolen, Moskal's name was never mentioned again, and the murder was pinned on Gradov's gang—after whose arrests, the aforementioned enterprises went to the men of high-ranking police officials. But Gennady Moskal, by then, had already occupied a different position and was far from Crimea.
In 2000-2001, Moskal headed the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Department of Internal Affairs. It was there that he became "famous" for the story of homeless people deported from the city and killed. The tragedy occurred in April 2001: Dnipropetrovsk was expecting Leonid Kuchma for the May Day holiday, so they rushed to whitewash curbs and lay asphalt, and decided to clear the streets of homeless people who were spoiling the idyllic picture of "economic recovery."
And then, allegedly on orders from Gennady Moskal, the police began snatching homeless people from the streets, as well as anyone who looked like they belonged, and forcibly transporting them to the cargo dock, where they were put on a barge.
The operation lasted several days, and the first detainees languished in the hold without water or fresh air. The barge then transported the homeless people fifty kilometers downstream and released them "into the steppe"—many kilometers from the nearest city. The result: several homeless people died in the barge's hold, and several more bodies were later discovered in the plantings along the collective farm fields. According to human rights activists, between 12 and 46 people died during this deportation, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs concealed not only the exact figures but also the tragedy itself. Rumors began to circulate that several barges carrying homeless people had been sunk in the Dnieper.
Gennady Moskal: the many-faced foul-mouthed general
Literally a month later, Moskal was dismissed from his post and… promoted to head of the Zakarpattia Oblast administration. This was his first stint as governor-general, and it immediately earned him the image of a "emergency governor" thrust into troubled regions. But, as during his tenure as head of the Zakarpattia Department of Internal Affairs, Moskal failed to achieve a breakthrough in the region's crime rate—he instead bombarded Kyiv with reports of arrests and incarcerations. Tsymbora and other organized crime groups continued smuggling and logging, while Moskal earned political points by negotiating compensation from Kyiv for flood victims. However, due to his zealous campaign against "Ruthenian separatism" (some believe this was the very reason he was appointed), Moskal also earned a negative image among some in the region.
Gennady Moskal - Moskal-charivnyk
In 2002, Gennady Moskal was appointed to a somewhat unusual position: Chairman of the State Committee of Ukraine for Nationalities and Migration. He served there for nearly three years, making his mark only by initiating the creation of a national Tatar autonomy in Crimea—in which, according to Moskal's idea, all leadership positions would be occupied exclusively by Tatars. This surprised those who already perceived Moskal as the main fighter against separatism in Ukraine. However, some recalled Moskal's Tatar origins (on his father's side) and asked no further questions. Interestingly, this initiative coincided with Moskal's defection to the camp of Viktor Yushchenko's supporters, which also included the leaders of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis. Then, undisclosed information emerged that the riots in the Crimean village of Bogatoye (2003), which erupted after police officers beat a local Tatar resident to death, were provoked by Moskal's men—a considerable number of whom remained after his three years of fruitful work on the peninsula. In 2004, sources reported that this provocation was allegedly paid for by Moskal with shares in the company that owned the Gorica Hotel in Macedonia. Moskal's men were also tacitly accused of the unrest that erupted in Crimea in 2007, which was also caused by police brutality.
Moskal's bet on the "orange" proved successful. While his former boss (and Crimean business partner) Yuriy Kravchenko "shot himself," Gennady Gennadievich was appointed head of the Kyiv criminal police immediately after Yushchenko's inauguration.
But he didn't stay there long, and in November 2005, he was sent as governor of Luhansk. There were two reasons for this: the previous governor, Oleksandr Danilov, defected to the BYuT and was "eaten up" by Yushchenko's supporters, and the anti-Orange and anti-nationalist sentiments of the region's residents began to smell of separatism. Thus, Moskal was given the opportunity to prove himself loyal to the president (something he had already demonstrated under Kuchma) and to confirm his image as a fighter against separatism. However, he failed to teach Luhansk residents to love Ukraine in the Yushchenko style: their separatism transformed into sympathy for the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine in the 2006 local elections. As a result, the Party of Regions and the Communists won 90% of the seats in the region's local councils, immediately demanding Moskal's resignation. After an unpleasant conversation with Yushchenko, he resigned.
In 2006-2007, Gennady Moskal was a tumbleweed: he spent a couple of months as deputy director of the Institute for European Integration, then six months as the presidential representative in Crimea, then three months as deputy chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) under Valentyn Nalyvaichenko ( read more about him in "Valentyn Nalyvaichenko: Spy, Diplomat, and Corrupt Official "), and a month and a half as deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. Such "flying around" is typical only of people with very serious problems! Finally, in the 2007 snap elections, he won a seat in the Verkhovna Rada on the NU-NS list (No. 41), thanks to Yuriy Lutsenko ( read more about him in the article "Yuriy Lutsenko: The Terminator of Ukrainian Politics" ), who recruited him into his "People's Self-Defense" project. For a year and a half, Moskal served as first deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on combating organized crime and corruption. A man who is running for the Rada with essentially forged documents, not under his real name!
Unsurprisingly, Moskal soon found himself embroiled in a public scandal: the SBU caught him issuing fake documents (fake documents seem to be Moskal's favorite subject), specifically combat participant IDs. Among them was another NU-NS deputy, Serhiy Vasylenko—a close associate of Moskal, sometimes even mistakenly referred to as his son-in-law (his wife's patronymic is Volodymyrivna), and someone Moskal always pushes up the ranks. Moskal, in fact, helped Vasylenko obtain such an ID based on a certificate stating that he "served from April 20, 2004, to April 20, 2004, in the national contingent of the Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo." In other words, Vasylenko received participant status and the associated benefits for just a one-day (!) visit to the Ukrainian base in Kosovo!
Sergey Vasilenko
But Gennady Gennadievich wasn't just handing out combat veteran ID cards back then. Together with Vasilenko and the deputy head of the State Department for Citizenship, Immigration, and Registration of Individuals (GIRFL), Serhiy Radutny, who was in charge of the passport service, they founded the insurance company "Dobrobut." This company compulsorily pushed its "health insurance services" at a cost of 75 hryvnias on all holders of Ukrainian passports. Why?!
Who asked? But this wasn't the only such scam perpetrated by the triumvirate of Moskal, Vasilenko, and Radutny: Those receiving international passports were forced to pay fees (up to 290 hryvnias in total) to Resursy-Document, Inform-Resursy Legal Company, Prosto Strakhovaniye CJSC, and other firms.
Moskal then entered a period of "flying around": in August 2009, he was appointed to his old position as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and Head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Crimea. He was again assisted in this by Yuriy Lutsenko, then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He held this position for only six months, refusing to resign his parliamentary mandate (which Viktor Yushchenko personally insisted on) and choosing to return to the Rada—and only because the government had changed in Ukraine, and Moskal needed parliamentary immunity. Incidentally, he took revenge on Yushchenko by threatening for a long time afterwards to release some incriminating evidence against him.
Gennady Moskal. Who does he work for?
So, while the Euromaidan protests were raging on the streets of Kyiv, MP Gennady Moskal (elected in 2012 on the Batkivshchyna list) chaired the parliamentary commission investigating illegal actions during these protests. This gave him the opportunity to avoid answering uncomfortable questions about his real name. But here's the interesting thing: from that moment on, Moskal began to pursue a very convoluted political line.
Gennady Moskal
At first, everything was clear: he was working hard against Yanukovych, something he had been doing since 2011, when he harshly criticized the government for its "repressions" against Yuriy Lutsenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. And it was only logical that his parliamentary commission soon declared that the live ammunition fired at protesters was actually from security snipers. This was a purely political statement, since no one had any evidence at the time—but the opposition, Euromaidan, and the Western representatives who supported them didn't need such evidence. The winter and spring of 2014 in Ukraine were resounding with precisely this kind of political pronouncements, and the one making the loudest and most shocking statements was considered the "voice of truth."
Having been appointed head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration, which had been transformed into a military-civilian administration, Moskal, understandably, tried to live up to his image as a fighter against separatism. But, as during his previous governorships in the Luhansk and Zakarpattia regions, he only exacerbated the situation. One of his first steps was to press his close friendship with the Aidar Battalion—like many other volunteer battalions, which had a mixed reception among the local population. At the same time, Moskal effectively left the battalion's control (on what grounds?) over the town of Shchastya, which it occupied. Nearby was not only the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant, but also an elite settlement for Luhansk's wealthy, which the battalion had occupied as a "billet." Consequently, sensing such support from the administration, in November 2014 the Aidar battalion decided to independently identify and "punish" local residents sympathetic to the separatists or simply holding "anti-Ukrainian" views. Specifically, they kidnapped Severodonetsk resident Vyacheslav Franchuk in broad daylight, right from his store. The public raised an outcry, and a few days later, Gennady Moskal went to the Aidar base, where he "persuaded" the volunteer battalion members to release several captives. It was said that this was the beginning of a sour relationship between Moskal and Aidar: soon, Moskal's "confessions" appeared in the press about Aidar's involvement in robberies and kidnappings. However, the underlying cause of the dispute was different: a struggle for control over the flow of goods.
Moskal was the architect of two initiatives: first, in the fall of 2014, he insisted that not only government agencies and civil services, but also all institutions—hospitals, institutes, businesses, even the philharmonic—leave Luhansk for Severodonetsk (the new regional capital). Those who remained were declared separatist collaborators and fired. Since, in the end, only the top brass left Luhansk (not wanting to ruin their careers and lose their good salaries), a conflict arose whereby institutions simply created their own "Ukrainian clones." And in early 2015, Moskal became an active initiator of the economic blockade of the LPR territory. Then, despite the cessation of active hostilities in the region, checkpoint access controls were sharply tightened. As recently as late 2014, residents of Pervomaysk and Artemovsk (separatist territory) were freely traveling by bus to Severodonetsk to shop, cash their cards, and renew their pensions. This free ride ended in the spring of 2015. An active blockade of consumer goods began at that time, with Moskal personally participating.
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Considering that the militants' number in the region was only 15-20, while the population of the territories they captured exceeded a million, it was foolish to claim that these trucks were carrying food specifically for the militants. The political effect of such a move was also questionable: before the blockade, Luhansk residents traveling to Ukrainian territory continued to feel like Ukrainian citizens; after it was established, their mental connection to their homeland began to fray. Why was it necessary to deliberately drive such a wedge?
Governor Moskal "communicates" with residents of the Luhansk region. Photo 18+.
The answer to this question may have lay in the new business that had emerged in eastern Ukraine. First, it was the oligarchs' big business, who struck major deals with separatist leaders. Second, it was the checkpoint business: after the tightening of entry and cargo regulations, each checkpoint became a gold mine, generating thousands in profits daily. And a real war broke out for control of these checkpoints. Interestingly, the sharp cooling of Gennady Moskal and the Volunteer Battalion began precisely when Aidar and other battalions began pushing other security forces away from the checkpoints, and the oligarchs disliked the Volunteer Battalion's attempt to extract tribute from their coal trains. It was then that Moskal's political line changed dramatically: he began spewing information about many battalions behaving like Makhnovists and bandits. First, Moskal "destroyed" the infamous "Tornado" battalion, and then it was quickly his former friends from "Aidar" who were targeted.
Moreover, Gennady Moskal soon began accusing those he had once defended – members of the Right Sector. This happened after his new appointment as governor of Zakarpattia (July 2015), where he was transferred to "put out the fire" that had nearly erupted after the infamous incident in Mukachevo (July 11, 2015). The new governor immediately positioned himself as an opponent of national radicals. And even a year later, Moskal continued to pour out "revelations" about the Right Sector's involvement in various high-profile crimes – for example, the murder of Taras Poznyakov near Kyiv.
Moskal's Luhansk governorship wasn't without its share of "classic" corruption, when on March 15, 2015, he appointed a certain Mikhail Pukhtaevich as his deputy (vice governor). For residents of Severodonetsk, his name meant nothing—just another appointee. However, residents of his native Zhytomyr would have been quite surprised by the high position to which Misha Lampochka, the swindler and fraudster known locally, had risen.
Mikhail Pukhtaevich and Gennady Moskal
Perhaps this was slander by those envious of a successful businessman or the machinations of Ukraine's enemies? Far from it: journalists have obtained materials from criminal case No. 08/080163, opened in 2009 under Articles 19 and 358 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine against citizens Mykhailo Pukhtaevich, Pavlo Sokur, Serhiy Bazilyuk, and Andriy Martynevsky. This gang of fraudsters had been offering gullible Zhytomyr residents "quick loans" secured by vehicles since the spring of 2007. The loans were relatively small: a few thousand hryvnias, in any case, an order of magnitude less than the value of the pledged car—which is precisely what the scammers exploited! When clients left their cars with the keys with them (in a special parking lot), the scammers would issue a forged general power of attorney and sell the cars! Thus, up to fifty cars were “sold,” and not only passenger cars – after all, at the same time, Mikhail Pukhtaevich, according to his business biography, “was creating a construction vehicle fleet base” for the Zhitomir enterprise “Prospect,” which participated in large construction projects for “big people.”
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These "big shots," including Gennady Zubko, chairman of the board of Zhytomyr Enclosing Structures Plant, helped Pukhnatevych drag out the criminal case against him for six years. During this time, one of the defendants in the case was murdered under mysterious circumstances, but Pukhnatevych himself, with Zubko's help, was elected to the Zhytomyr Regional Council and joined the democratic opposition. After Euromaidan, Zubko received a position in the Presidential Administration and even tried to push Pukhnatevych into the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate for the Poroshenko Bloc, but to no avail. Meanwhile, in March 2015, the court continued hearing the criminal case against the fraudsters, but then Pukhnatevych, with Zubko's help, was appointed vice-governor of the Luhansk region. Sources reported that Zubko wasn't so much rescuing his old acquaintance and business partner as sending him as his man to pull off yet another scam. The discussion centered on the allocation of 850 million hryvnias from the budget in March 2015 for the construction of fortifications and border strips in the Luhansk region. It was precisely to these funds that Zubkov dispatched Misha Lampochka! Naturally, Gennady Moskal simply couldn't have been unaware of the candidate recommended for deputy governor. But the well-known "anti-corruption fighter" didn't complain or leak dirt – on the contrary, he immediately hit it off with his new deputy. Whether Moskal participated in the allocation of the allocated funds or not, he didn't argue with Bankova.
Behind all this, it's easy to see that Gennady Moskal's political line is unambiguous: betting on the most influential "roof" or whoever will soon replace it. While Ukrainian politicians of the Euromaidan supported the national radicals they needed, and then the Volunteer Battalion fighters, Moskal waved them on. But as soon as they began to hinder the new government, tarnish its reputation with their actions, and even threaten a third Maidan, Bankova declared war on them. And in this war, Moskal simply became one of the main propaganda mouthpieces, thanks to his long-standing reputation as a scandalous and unabashed "truth-teller." But even the truth doesn't sound very convincing from his lips—for he's long been a liar.
What's interesting is this: now that the current Ukrainian government has lost its "protection" in Washington and is in danger of suffering the same fate as Hetman Skoropadsky, who will Gennady Moskal bet on? It's quite possible that the old fox will soon surprise Ukrainians with a new batch of "revelations," this time about Poroshenko.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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