Igor Kononenko
Ihor Kononenko's name isn't widely known, but he's a highly influential politician. He's known as the "grey cardinal" of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, where he holds the position of first deputy head of the faction. He served in the army with the president and was his longtime business partner. He even shares a 1,1-hectare plot of land in Tsarskoye Selo with Petro Poroshenko. And unlike faction leader Yuriy Lutsenko, he has direct access to the "personal information" of the Garant and the "First Lady," as he has stated in interviews. This, as is well known, is a sign of immense influence and political clout among officials. Thus, today he, not the faction leader, is the main communicator between the president and his political force. However, Ihor Vitalyevich himself claims that he simply "exchanges information" with the president.
Igor Kononenko is a Komsomol member. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was secretary of the Komsomol organization at the Kyiv Highway Institute and a member of the student construction brigade staff. And when capitalism arrived, he, like many Komsomol members, went into business. Together with Petro Poroshenko, he was at the forefront of Ukrprominvest, a management company that included a wide variety of assets, from the Bogdan plant to the Roshen concern, from Leninskaya Kuznya to Channel 5. Igor Vitalievich held the position of vice president in this structure. While he and Petro Poroshenko managed the concern, Ukrprominvest laundered money through its companies LuAZ, Bogdan-Service, and others. They organized the fictitious export of goods from Ukraine to the United States and the return of the laundered money. The origin of these funds remains unclear. Furthermore, Ukrprominvest actively evaded taxes. The concern's auto companies imported numerous components and assemblies from abroad. They were obligated to pay VAT on these imports. To avoid paying taxes, Kononenko and Poroshenko's companies organized a scheme of fictitious export companies, which allowed them to "optimize" (i.e., cheat the state) out of millions of hryvnias.
In 2006, Ihor Vitaliyovych entered politics. He became a Kyiv City Council member representing the then-most corrupt political force, the Leonid Chernovetskyi Bloc. There, he served on the Committee on Transport and Communications. However, he was not remembered for any particular achievements or actions in this position. He is remembered for the fact that his committee approved the decision to build a heliport on Parkova Alley. He is associated with entities close to Oleksandr Yanukovych, and furthermore, the heliport was built with numerous violations of construction and environmental laws. Another thing Kononenko is remembered for is his stance on the Gostinny Dvor (Hostinny Dvor) in Podil. He advocated for its reconstruction and conversion into a shopping mall, essentially arguing for the destruction of this architectural landmark. And like all members of the Kyiv City Council at the time, he participated in the plundering of Kyiv's land.
Igor Kononenko grabbed a plot of land, so to speak, not just for himself, but also for his friend, the President of Ukraine. This is a plot of land in the center of the capital, in Pechersk, in "Tsarskoe Selo." It originally belonged to the Kyiv state-owned "Zelenstroy," but then a private enterprise, "Zelenbudservis-K," was created, which took over the plot, and Kononenko joined the board of directors. Overall, the setup is fairly standard. As for the plot itself, it's 1.1 hectares. Igor Vitalyevich's own estate is built on 46 acres of this plot, and across the street, apparently, a "maetochka" for Petro Oleksiyovych's family will soon be built. So, they'll be neighbors and able to come over for tea. And they'll see each other more often, which means Kononenko's influence will skyrocket. He'll be able to reach the President at any time, day or night, literally.
The last scandal Ihor Kolomoisky found himself embroiled in involved Ukrtransnafta. It featured everything imaginable: an office takeover, a change of directors, incidents involving armed guards, police disarming the guards, interference in the SBU case, and the beating of a Supervisory Board member with bats. In short, it was all the trappings of corporate raiding. Then Ihor Kolomoisky publicly stated that Ihor Kononenko was personally behind the conflict with this company. Judging by how quickly the President intervened in this situation and the harshness with which Kolomoisky paid for it, his statement appears to be true.
Each of the Ukrainian presidents had his own "gray cardinal". Kravchuk there was Khomenko, Kuchma had Tabachnyk (Read more about it in the article Dmitry and Mikhail Tabachnik. Brother for brother), and then Medvedchuk. Yushchenko had Baloha, Yanukovych had Prygodsky (Read more about it in the article Anton Prigodsky: Yanukovych's first "grey cardinal"), then Ivanyushchenko and Levochkin. The current head of the Presidential Administration, Boris Lozhkin, is hardly a "grey cardinal." But a vacuum abhors a holy place, and it will likely be filled... and most likely already is by Igor Kononenko.
Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info
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