Maxim Burbak
The Ukrainians who stood on the Maidan naively believed they were wresting power from corrupt officials and handing it over to new leaders: young, honest, professional, and pro-European. Maksym Burbak was one of those seen on stage alongside the "leaders of the revolution," and the one on whom millions of our fellow citizens pinned their hopes. And he quickly shattered those hopes, demonstrating that the new isn't always better than the old, but is often merely a repetition of it.
Senya and his team
Maksym Yuryevich Burbak was born on January 13, 1976, in Chernivtsi, into an intellectual family of Chernivtsi University professors. His maternal grandfather, Fedir Stepanovich Arvat, was the head of the Philology Department, and his mother, Olena Fedorivna, worked in the Foreign Languages Department. It's fair to say he owes much of his future career to his mother: she enrolled her sons, Oleksiy (born January 1, 1974), and then Maksym, in Chernivtsi Specialized School No. 9, which specialized in English (now Gymnasium No. 9). There, the older Oleksiy became a classmate of the small and nimble Senya, the son of her friend and colleague, university professor Maria Hryhorivna Yatsenyuk. The future Ukrainian prime minister sat at the same desk with Oleksiy Burbak and became his friend. Moreover, Alexey, due to his build and strong character, more than once saved Senya from hooligans and simply from peers who were angered by his vigorous activity.
Thus, the close relationship between Yatsenyuk and the Burbak brothers began in childhood, and even earlier, with the friendship between their mothers. Another member of their school group later became Pavlo Petrenko (current Minister of Justice, Read more about it in the article Pavel Petrenko, the "pocket" boy of the Yatsenyuk "Family"), who is several years younger than Burbakov and Yatsenyuk.
Oleksiy Burbak and Arseniy Yatsenyuk in a student photo album
The Burbaki brothers, however, maintain a stubborn silence about the Soviet past of their father, Yuriy Mykolayovych Burbaki. Their official biography states only that until 1991 he was engaged in "various activities," but neither will admit to what exactly. Nowadays, Maksym Burbak has repeatedly said that his father "reads books on the couch," and any psychologist will tell you that such statements about family and friends are usually not far from the truth. It's also interesting that Yuriy Burbak officially only began pursuing business in the early 90s, just when his eldest son, Oleksiy, and his friend, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, entered Chernivtsi University and, already in their first year, began pursuing commerce. Therefore, it's possible that all this time, the prominent Chernivtsi businessman, Yuriy Burbak, was in fact merely the figurehead chairman of his sons' companies.
In 1992, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a man with a knack for making connections, became close to Valentin Gnatyshev, the son of the then governor of the Chernivtsi region, with whose help he opened the company YurEk Ltd. He took on his old friend Oleksiy Burbak and two other classmates, Andriy Pyshnyy, as partners.Read more about it in the article Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer) and Andrey Ivanchuk (Read more about it in the article Andriy Ivanchuk, a friend of Yatsenyuk and a lobbyist for Kolomoisky's interests) are now members of parliament from the People's Front. During their active work on privatization issues, their team became closely acquainted with such prominent Chernivtsi residents as Mykhailo Papiyev and Oleksandr Zinchenko (who died in 2010). It's worth noting that Anatoly Matios, the future military prosecutor of Ukraine, also studied in the same class as Yatsenyuk and Oleksiy Burbak.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the Burbak brothers
Oleksiy Burbak was inseparable from Yatsenyuk for a long time, even traveling with him to Crimea when Yatsenyuk was appointed Minister of Economy of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 2001. Burbak became his advisor and unexpectedly established deep roots in the shadows of Crimean power: even after his friend Yatsenyuk left for Kyiv, he remained in Simferopol, becoming an advisor to the Prime Minister and Speaker of the Crimean Parliament. However, without losing his ties to Yatsenyuk, Burbak became his confidant on the peninsula, later establishing and heading the local branch of the "Front for Change." Interestingly, Burbak avoided the positions offered to him, preferring to remain an advisor, consultant, and researcher, engaging in purely behind-the-scenes politics and shadow business.
Oleksiy Burbak and Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the Easter ceremony
“Dobrobut” Burbakov
While his older brother closely followed his childhood friend, the younger Maksym Burbak graduated from the same Chernivtsi University in 1998 with a degree in law and went into business. The younger Burbak never disclosed the details of his first business venture, but it is reported that he initially transported cars from Hungary and Slovakia to Ukraine, then opened a used car lot and a new car dealership. In 2008, he became the head of Bukovyna Auto Alliance, a company selling TATA trucks, ZAZ buses, and Lada, Chevrolet, Opel, and Chery cars. From this business, the Burbak family personally owned 35 (!) trucks and cars, which were included in Maksym Yuryevich's 2013 asset declaration.
At the same time, Maksym Burbak began a business related to Chernivtsi's Kalinovskyi Market (popularly known as Kalinka), founded in 1990 and owned by the city. It is one of the largest markets in Ukraine (along with Barabashovo and 7th Kilometer), becoming the economic hub not only of Chernivtsi but of the entire region. In 2013, Kalinovskyi employed 22 entrepreneurs and "sellers," whose taxes, fees, and contributions generated a significant share of revenue for the city and regional budgets (approximately 32 million). Yatsenyuk and the Burbak brothers had their eye on this market since the 90s.
In 1996, Kalinovsky's director, Bohdan Kravchuk, known in Chernivtsi as a Soviet dissident and member of the Helsinki Group, was arrested on bribery charges. He was succeeded by Ivan Rynzhuk, a close associate of Mykola Fedoruk, the former first secretary of the Chernivtsi regional committee of the LKSMU, who had headed the Chernivtsi city council in 1994 and become mayor in 1997 (now a member of the People's Front faction). Arseniy Yatsenyuk developed a very close relationship with Fedoruk, and through him, the Burbak family became close to him—primarily Maksym, who remained in Chernivtsi, and his "book-reading" father.
Maxim Burbak and Nikolai Fedoruk
For several years, the established system satisfied everyone, but in 2005, after Arseniy Yatsenyuk became Ukraine's Minister of Economy, something happened. Chernivtsi city authorities, with the active support of Mayor Fedoruk, leased a 6,42-hectare plot of land at 13B Kalynivska Street to Invest-Alliance LLC (founded by Lidiya Stepanovna Leshcheva, Arseniy Yatsenyuk's aunt). This "vacant lot" belonged to the local DOSSAF driving school and was located right on the edge of the expanding Kalinovskyi Market. The market had nowhere else to expand, only one way—so Invest-Alliance LLC acquired the plot, ostensibly for the construction of an educational and exhibition pavilion. Instead of an exhibition, however, a private market, Dobrobut, was established on the leased plot, founded and owned by Invest-Alliance and the company Bukotrading. And as it turns out, the founder of BukoTrading itself (with a charter capital of 17 million hryvnias) is a modest Chernivtsi retiree who enjoys reading books on the couch, Yuriy Mykolayovych Burbak. He never explained the origin of the 17 million hryvnias contributed to BukoTrading's charter capital.
In 2006, the leased land expanded—in just a few years, Invest-Alliance LLC had acquired nearly 12 hectares of land, which were privatized for a mere 5 million hryvnias with the full approval of city officials, represented by Mykola Fedoruk. The essence of this scam was that the growing Kalinka now seamlessly merged with Dobrobut: essentially, it became one large market, the old space of which remained the municipal Kalinka, and the new space the private Dobrobut. Furthermore, parking lots and a drive-through area, covering a total of over 3 hectares, were built on Dobrobut's territory. In 2013, entry fees were charged at 10 hryvnias ($1,25) per vehicle, raking in tens of thousands of dollars a day! Moreover, by exploiting the fictitious status of an "exhibition pavilion" and privatizing the land, Dobrobut paid nothing to the city budget! The takeover of Kalinka was not hindered in the least, and was even facilitated by its director, Ivan Rynzhuk, who created unbearable conditions for entrepreneurs (including through criminal means) who fled the municipal Kalinovsky market for the private Dobrobut market. The profits of Dobrobut's owners were so enormous that the market was cited as the main source of funding for the Front for Change.
And they could have been even greater: in 2006, at Fedoruk's insistence, the Kalinovskyi market itself was almost "privatized." It was transferred to MegaMarket LLC, owned by the Yatsenyuk-Fedoruk-Burbak triumvirate. However, the market's entrepreneurs rebelled, marched all the way to Kyiv, and through the courts secured the preservation of Kalinka as municipal property.
And in 2007, the owners of the Dobrobut market (Yatsenyuk and Burbaki) pulled off another scam. The market was mortgaged to AT Swedbank, the former TAS-Kommerzbank of Sergei Tigipko.Read more about it in the article Serhiy Tigipko: Komsomol oligarch covers his tracks), which he sold to the Swedes while remaining its director. The loan amounted to approximately 136 million, of which only 36 million was repaid. This would hardly have been possible without a prior agreement with Tigipko, who generously lent to Svedobank in 2007-2008 and then stepped down after the crisis, leaving the Swedes with colossal losses.
The scheme turned out to be quite prescient. In 2011, Chernivtsi experienced a veritable upheaval: Mayor Fedoruk was dismissed by the city council, and Ivan Rynzhuk, director of the Kalinovskyi market, was arrested for accepting a $250 bribe. The new city government, represented by acting mayor Vitaliy Mykhailyshyn (from the Party of Regions), filed a lawsuit to annul the privatization of the land plot under the Dobrobut market, thereby attempting to "nationalize" it from Yatsenyuk and Burbaki. Interestingly, shortly afterward, Arseniy Yatsenyuk launched his political campaign, "Rise Up, Ukraine!", calling for the immediate overthrow of the "Donetsk regime." However, the expropriation failed because the land was pledged to Svedobank, and the Swedes insisted on a deferment of the court ruling until the debt was fully repaid—which never happened due to the well-known events that erupted in Ukraine. In May 2014, Oleksiy Kaspruk, a member of the Front for Change and a close associate of Yatsenyuk and Maksym Burbaki, was elected mayor of Chernivtsi. And in January 2015, the city court dismissed the criminal case against Ivan Rynzhuk, who had previously been released on bail.
The brilliance and poverty of the “People's Front”
In 2009, Yatsenyuk mobilized his classmates and business partners to form his "Front of Change." Maksym Burbak immediately became head of its Chernivtsi regional branch: his lack of political experience was compensated for by Yatsenyuk's immense trust in his childhood friend. However, experience comes with a price: in the 2010 local elections, Maksym Burbak was elected to the regional council and became the head of the "Front of Change" faction. For a time, this allowed the Burbaks and Yatsenyuk to protect their business interests in Chernivtsi. However, on March 31, 2011, the Chernivtsi City Council voted to terminate Mayor Fedoruk's term early. Only the "Front of Change" and "Svoboda" factions opposed the decision. Seeing that power in the city, and essentially the region, was slipping through his fingers, Maksym Burbak decided to move to Kyiv. In the 2012 parliamentary elections, he was number 43 on the Batkivshchyna party list, with whom the Front for Change had agreed to merge into a single electoral bloc. Interestingly, in his candidate declaration, Maksimum Burbak stated that he had earned nothing, not a penny, in 2011. This was staggering poverty, but understandable given that he had registered his business in his father's name.
Until the Euromaidan, Maksym Burbak, like the rest of his faction, entertained themselves by blocking the parliamentary rostrum during breaks between trips to the "Arise, Ukraine!" protests. And on February 27, 2014, Maksym Burbak received the portfolio of Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine: thus, Yatsenyuk demonstrated that he had not forgotten his childhood friends and co-owners of his business.
It soon became clear that replacing "Donetsk" and "Kharkiv" with "Dnipropetrovsk," "Vinnytsia," and "Chernivtsi" hadn't significantly changed the face of the Ukrainian government, which continued to "grab," "saw," and "employ" its own people (and at a tenfold rate compared to previous ones). The first scandals were not long in coming, materializing in the person of Mykhailo Pankiv: Andriy Ivanchuk proposed his candidacy for the position of head of Ukrposhta to Burbak. As a result, Ukrposhta began working for the Yatsenyuk-Burbak team, and at public expense. For example, during the 2014 parliamentary election campaign, Ukrposhta offered the People's Front a 900 hryvnia discount for distributing campaign leaflets. And in the spring of 2015, when the hryvnia was rapidly falling, Ukrposhta sold 6 million of its own dollars at a reduced rate to Avant Bank, which is connected to Petro Poroshenko’s circle (Read more about him in the article "Petro Poroshenko: Biography and the Whole Truth About Ukraine's 'Chocolate King'").
At the same time, another personnel scandal was developing: at the demand of the Euromaidan activists, Maksym Burbaka fired the general director of the Boryspil airport, Oleksiy Kachanov, a protégé of businessmen Boris Kaufman and Oleksandr Granovsky, who had been “milking” the airport since the summer of 2013.Read more about them in the article Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels). He fired him and appointed his deputy, Sergei Gombolevsky, another of Granovsky's men, to the position. It was reported that Burbak not only knew Gombolevsky's identity but also appointed him to lead Boryspil at the request of Yatsenyuk, to whom Kaufman and Granovsky generously contributed to the People's Front party coffers.
Maksym Burbak gifted another party sponsor, oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, the Ukrainian skies. First, he appointed Denys Antonyuk, a former top manager at Kolomoisky's Ukraine International Aviation (UIA), as head of the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine. He then redistributed Ukrainian air routes in favor of UIA, effectively squeezing all of its competitors out of the market—a move that provoked outrage among airlines, who demanded a personal meeting with the prime minister and president.
Maxim Burbak is rushing to the rescue
After the snap parliamentary elections in the fall of 2014, Maksym Burbak returned to parliament, heading the People's Front faction and focusing on saving his friend Senya in every sense of the word—thanks to which Yatsenyuk's second government lasted until early 2016. Yet the inevitability of his government's resignation was already obvious, so the "Chernivtsi people" wisely chose parliamentary mandates and parliamentary immunity. However, having acquired a taste for the luxurious life at public expense, they did not abandon their acquired habits. Thus, in August of this year, Maksym Burbak arrived in his native Chernivtsi by helicopter. In fact, it was practically the same (if not the same) one that once flew President Yanukovych, whose extravagance became the talk of the town. But while Yanukovych's "golden toilet" and equally "golden" helicopter were widely discussed in the media back then, the People's Front faction leader's luxurious means of transportation is now carefully hidden from public view. And who knows how much his own "golden toilet" is worth?
Maxim Burbak's helicopter
Yanukovych's helicopter
Meanwhile, officially, Maksym Burbak lives solely on his parliamentary salary: his 2015 tax return listed only 76 hryvnias of annual income, an old VAZ-2108. But this time, he included his wife's income (1,25 million hryvnias) and her capital (1,3 million hryvnias in deposits and 4 million hryvnias in authorized capital). As for his beloved bookish father, who owns half of the Dobrobut market and has multi-million-dollar annual revenues, Maksym Burbak chose to remain silent.
Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info
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