Igor Rainin
As predicted, former President Poroshenko's team is crumbling before our eyes and scattering in all directions. While seasoned "overseers" and "fixers" are finding it easy to find a place for themselves in new political projects, incompetent performers like former Chief of Staff Igor Rainin are now facing a very difficult time. He spent his entire life relying on patrons who propelled his career, and now he's left alone with his own irrelevance. Will we see him in the leadership again? Will he be lucky enough to get into the new parliament? Or is Rainin's fate a prison sentence?
Engineers-cooperators
Igor Lvovich Rainin was born on August 6, 1973, in Kharkiv, to engineer Lev Mikhailovich Rainin, a descendant of native Kharkiv Jews who settled in the city in the 19th century. This fact is worth mentioning because Igor Rainin's ethnic background significantly contributed to his career, as well as to the career of his friend, the boss. Boris Lozhkina, also a former head of the Presidential Administration of Poroshenko, who is now vice president of the World Jewish Congress.
Lev Mikhailovich was the first in their family to enter business. Even during perestroika, he realized that a simple Soviet engineer could live much better if he worked not only for a salary but also for a "cooperator" fee. In 1990, he placed his son, who had just finished high school, in the "Nalachik" cooperative as a gas equipment technician. The job was too responsible for a young boy without a relevant education, so rumors circulated that Igor Rainin merely handed over wrenches, but was paid as a qualified specialist.
To get his son out of the army, Rainin's father decided to enroll him in a "civilian-military" university, and spent two years arranging a draft deferment for him. It wasn't until 1992 that Igor Rainin was able to enroll in the Kharkiv Aviation Institute (KhAI), majoring in "Spacecraft Engines and Power Plants." Then, his father transferred him to work at the Techservice Engineering and Consulting Center, as a... service engineer. How could a nineteen-year-old first-year student work in an engineering position? Apparently, the same way he worked as a gas equipment service engineer.
From 1993 to 1996, student Igor Rainin worked (or was listed as) as a site manager at another of his father's cooperatives, PCF Agris (EDRPOU 21240814), and then became deputy director of the Educational, Scientific, and Production Center "Okhrana Otruka" (EDRPOU 22723182), which remains one of his parents' main businesses. Finally, after receiving his KhAI diploma in 1997, Igor Rainin received the position of general director of the family-owned company "Okhrana Otruka" as a gift from his father.
However, for some reason that remains undisclosed, between April and August 1998, Igor Rainin left Kharkiv for the middle of nowhere, to the very edge of the region, to the pleasant village of Kolomak (population 2800), where he worked for four months as a specialist in the district administration. Again, it was unclear exactly what field Igor Rainin, a space propulsion engineer, could have worked in there. And why did his first experience in government service end so abruptly, after which Rainin disappeared altogether for almost two years? What is known is that Rainin's old friend, Oleksiy Logvinenko, then deputy head of the regional state administration, was assigned to the government service.
How to rob Turboatom
Alexey Logvinenko
In 1988, Kharkiv State University lecturer Alexei Logvinenko (born 1955) transferred to the regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. There, he was entrusted with the position of head of the academic department at the local branch of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, which in Logvinenko's current biography is modestly listed as the "Institute of Public Policy."
At the same time, in Kharkov, the young First Secretary of the Moscow District Committee of the LKSMU, Viktor Subbotin (born 1959), was promoted to the position of First Secretary of the City Komsomol Committee. He quickly became acquainted with Logvinenko and found him a kindred spirit—not in Leninism, or even in the theory of perestroika, but in his desire to engage in entrepreneurship. Subbotin's desire was irresistible, so by 1990 he had quit his administrative position and begun transforming the "Komsomol cash desk" into commercial banks: "Youth Commercial Bank," "Region Bank," and "Dobrodiy Bank." In 1992, he became deputy director and majority owner (over 60%), and in 1995, chairman of the board of Dobrodiya, which he renamed Megabank—one of the leading banks in the Kharkiv region, implicated in numerous corruption and even criminal schemes. Logvinenko soon became chairman of the bank's supervisory board.
Victor Subbotin
As early as 1998, Kharkiv-based Turboatom opened accounts with Megabank. Machine-building giants play as important a role in Kharkiv's life as steel mills do in Donetsk. Although their production is more complex, and the finished product isn't as easily sold as steel slabs, demand for turbines is relatively stable, as are global prices. Therefore, according to Turboatom, Skelet.OrgKharkiv's fat cats and semi-criminal groups have long been licking their chops. Many have tried to seize the enterprise using the classic Ukrainian scheme—that is, by ruining it, getting it hooked on debt, and then seizing the shares to pay off the debts. For example, Arsen Avakov In the early 2000s, through his Investor-Neftegaz LLC (a subsidiary of Investor JSC), he supplied gas to two of his own companies that had taken over Kharkiv's CHPP-3 and CHPP-4. And through CHPP-3, which supplied electricity and heat to Turboatom, he intended to put the company into debt, in order to later privatize it jointly with Konstantin GrigorishinIt is worth noting that Grigorishina, according to data SKELET-infoAs an active financier of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Volodymyr Petrenko, a member of the Securities and Stock Market Commission and also a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine, supported him at the time. And, as Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers' Interdepartmental Commission on Combating Corporate Raiding, he lobbied for his interests with the commission's head, Mykola Azarov, then Deputy Prime Minister.
In 2005, Avakov became head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, and the battle for Turboatom intensified. Grigorishin already owned 14% of the shares and had assembled a team of his own people at the enterprise, led by deputy director Yevhen Belinsky (who became CEO in 2006). A good half of the plant's working capital (141 million hryvnias) was sitting in deposit accounts at Avakov's Basis Bank (at a derisory 3% annual interest rate), indicating a clear drain on profits. However, in 2006, with the help of the Minister of Energy, Yuri Boyko 75% of Turboatom's shares were transferred to the state-owned concern Ukratomprom, which was created at the same time (it existed until 2008), and the plant's privatization fell through. Grigorishin began to lose interest in the enterprise, while Belinsky, with the help of his son, a businessman living in Russia, created an intermediary firm that profited handsomely from supplying turbines to Russian companies.
However, all this time, Subbotin's group was also vying for Turboatom. The plant also held deposits in his Megabank, and for an even larger sum—around 200 million hryvnias. And in the spring of 2007, Subbotin won: although Turboatom's privatization was postponed indefinitely, he became its general director. Belinsky tried to resist, and even staged a plant takeover, but ultimately lost – and Subbotin still runs Turboatom. And here's the most interesting part: the fact is that back in April 2007, Avakov was against Subbotin's appointment and strongly supported Belinsky (as Grigorishin's man), and just a couple of months later, he began actively supporting Subbotin. Moreover, Avakov was then called Subbotin's lobbyist and patron. Which, in many ways, explained why Subbotin steadfastly remained in his position both under Tymoshenko's premiership (2008-2009) and after the second Maidan (since 2014), even despite a stream of incriminating complaints from Belinsky's team.
Why? Sources Skelet.Org There were reports of behind-the-scenes agreements between Avakov and Subbotin, who decided to peacefully divide Turboatom between themselves—not its shares, but its profits, which they would siphon off through their banks and firms. But this agreement didn't arise suddenly. Back in 2005, Oleksiy Logvinenko, an old friend of Subbotin's and, at the same time, a Megabank shareholder and chairman of its supervisory board, became Avakov's advisor. In 2006, Logvinenko was elected to parliament under the banner of Batkivshchyna, remaining loyal to the party until 2011, when he defected to the party. Natalia Korolevskaya "Forward, Ukraine."
Why did we tell you this story of the economic takeover of Turboatom? Because Lev Rainin had been a good friend of Logvinenko's since the 90s (or perhaps not the 80s). It was Alexey Logvinenko who patronized his son, Igor Rainin, as well as another Kharkiv "young talent," Boris Lozhkin. And it was thanks to Logvinenko that they were able to reach the pinnacle of their careers as heads of the presidential administration.
But there's something else: Turboatom's budget also feeds the Raininov family firm, Labor Protection, whose director is currently Lev Mikhailovich. In 2015, the firm made a tidy profit from the plant. having sold him for 654 thousand hryvniasWorkwear and protective equipment, more than doubling their price! Similar contracts were signed in 2016-2018. It's clear that the company's CEO, Subbotin, gave the go-ahead for this scam.
The path of the informer
After his "Kolomak exile," Igor Rainin disappeared into thin air for two whole years (from August 1998 to June 2000): this period remains a blank spot in all his biographies. It is only known that in 1999 he had a son (Rainin married in 1995), but what was he doing then? Officially, Rainin was studying at the Kharkiv branch of the National Academy of Public Administration (formerly the Higher Party School), which was logical after his civil service career in Kolomak. However, Rainin, from a young age, was never idle; even while studying at the KhAI (a much more difficult endeavor), he simultaneously worked for his father's companies. Therefore, it looked very much like a forced exile, possibly abroad, and learning the reasons behind it would be very interesting.
Again, in July 2000, Igor Rainin, a graduate of the Academy of Management with honors (according to his own words), for some reason returned to work at his father's LLC, the UNPC "Okhrana Occupational Health" (UNPC "Labor Protection"), as executive director. He humbly awaited his lucky break until March 2001, when he was offered a position at the Kharkiv Regional State Administration. Rainin was appointed head of the International Technical Assistance Project Coordination Department at the Main Department of Economy (GDE). In April 2002, he became deputy head of the GDE at the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, serving there until April 2010. Moreover, in 2005, with the arrival of Arsen Avakov at the Regional State Administration, Rainin was even slightly promoted to first deputy head of the GDE—a move facilitated by his patron, Logvinenko, who became an advisor to Avakov. During this period, Rainin also managed to serve as a volunteer assistant to MP Logvinenko.
But there's something Rainin never mentioned in his biographies: how in 2009 he became an SBU agent under the alias "Aviator," how he was tasked with meeting with famous and influential people (including Avakov) and then informing on them. In these reports, he called Avakov "a drunkard who raped his fellow soldiers," and Oleksandr Davtyan an "anti-Semite." Incidentally, this wasn't the only time Igor Rainin backhandedly criticized people who provided him with patronage and favors. Later, when these facts were published, Rainin could only deny everything.
In March 2010, Avakov was dismissed, and the new governor of Kharkov became Mikhail Dobkin, who had previously served as mayor (2006-2010). Relations between the city and regional administrations in Kharkiv had been difficult for years, so when Dobkin took over the regional administration, he launched a major purge—one that also affected Rainin. Logvinenko was unable to help him, even though Dobkin had repeatedly spoken positively of Subbotin at the time, who remained the director of Turboatom.
For two months (May-June), Igor Rainin managed to secure a position as director of the Kharkiv Institute of Metrology, but then he was fired from there too. For the next four years, he quietly occupied the position of deputy director of Sintoflex LLC (EDRPOU 36815660), founded by Andrey Kryuchkov and Stanislav Skripai—people directly connected to Rainin's business and the founders of several companies where he and his close associates worked.
In the fall of 2010, Rainin entered politics—purely tentatively, of course. Avakov then assembled the Batkivshchyna team for the regional council elections: he was number one, Rainin was number eight, and Ihor Baluta (former head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration's Department of Labor and Social Protection) was number ninth. When Avakov was elected as a member of parliament in 2012, Rainin became his assistant.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Igor Rainin: Poroshenko's Kharkiv Guard. Part 2
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