Mikhail Brodsky
The name Mikhail Yuryevich Brodsky is familiar to anyone interested in Ukrainian politics, as he's been involved for a long time. Recently, he's begun appearing on TV screens with increasing frequency. This unexpected resurgence of Mikhail Yuryevich suggests that veteran figures capable of throwing the well-known substance are once again in demand. Perhaps Mikhail Yuryevich himself thinks he can return to politics. He has repeatedly stated that he's ready to become Minister of Economy in order to save the country. He acted as a mediator in the release of Gennady Korban from pretrial detention, as we reported (Brodsky helped free Korban from pretrial detention.). And how he scolded the Yatsenyuk government and especially the Ministry of Health, he even wrote entire articles (The Ministry of Health's new gold chain). But no political force will take him on. Why? They'll dump him. They'll definitely dump him. And Mikhail Brodsky's entire biography serves as proof that this will happen.
Painter
Theoretically, Mikhail Brodsky can be attributed to the so-called “Kyiv clan”, the one where the brothers Igor and Grigory Surkis (Read more about it in the article Grigory Surkis: How to divide Ukraine in a brotherly manner), Alexander Volkov, and other now-forgotten comrades who began their political careers in the capital in the early 90s. But calling these people a "clan" is rather loose; it's more of a shared interest group. In 1992-1993, the interests of Grigory Surkis and Mikhail Brodsky first coincided. Brodsky was then a painter's foreman, and European-style renovations were gaining popularity in Kyiv. In fact, during one of these renovations, the then-young Grigory Mikhailovich met the even younger Mikhail Yurievich. Moreover, he introduced Brodsky to the crime bosses Kisel and Cherep. The former was primarily involved in illegal currency trading and smuggling at the time, while the latter was essentially a vassal of the former but was already in charge of drug trafficking and prostitution. And, of course, both controlled a district of Kyiv, engaging in racketeering and related extortion, robbery, and murder. But around 1994-1995, they needed to legalize their income. Surkis was unsuitable for this purpose—by then, he was already an advisor to the president. Leonid Kravchuk and competed for the post of president of FC Dynamo Kyiv. But Misha Brodsky was quite suitable—young, untainted by anything. Thus, the Dendy concern was born, and Brodsky became its president.
Figurehead chairman
Back then, it was fashionable to call your private businesses by grandiose names like "corporation" or "concern," and to call yourself "president"—no less. The name "Dendi" itself was taken from a video game console that was popular at the time. Be that as it may, the concern included numerous small and medium-sized enterprises, including currency and oil traders who funneled "black cash" through exchanges, as well as a number of firms providing fictitious services through which "black cash" was also funneled. Moreover, in this case, "black cash" was truly black, as it included not only money obtained through tax evasion but also money obtained through criminal activity, "blood money," and prostitution. After passing through traders and fictitious services, this money became virtually legal and accumulated in the accounts of companies such as "Dendi," "Tompo," "Mariam," and others. Mikhail Brodsky was a co-owner of these firms. Cherep's second confidant was Oleg Mesel-Veseljak. The money was then transferred to Dendi Bank, where it became completely legal. This was achieved by "running" it through the interbank system, under the control of the National Bank of Ukraine. This part of the operation was handled by Grigory Surkis, who at the time owned the Ukrainian Credit Bank. The chairman of that bank's board was a certain Yuriy Lyakh, who was also a member of the exchange committee of the Ukrainian Interbank Exchange. The laundered money could then be used to conduct completely legal business. In fact, it was used. An interesting point: in those years, Brodsky was nicknamed "Mishanya" and also "Pups," and although he was already a wallet for the Kyiv mafia, he was also used in other ways—during the bosses' breaks, he opened bottles and sliced sausage.
Offender
In those days, entire factories and even entire industries weren't yet being stolen. The young men emerging from the 1990s had much more modest appetites—they mostly grabbed what they could see. The "schemes" of those days can be seen in the example of the Himalayas restaurant on Khreshchatyk, in the center of the capital. In 1992, this restaurant, then called the "Tea-Coffee Pavilion," was privatized by its employees, as was common practice at the time, using vouchers. An employee, a former bartender, became the director, and effectively the owner, of the newly-formed private restaurant. It was a good, central location, where the mobsters often gathered. And, apparently, at some point they decided to "privatize" the place. The grandson of the restaurant's owner was "set up" with debts. According to one version, he was simply loaned an amount he couldn't repay; according to another, it was a card debt. He is put on the counter, and the restaurant owner is forced to sell the establishment to a Belgian citizen and a Ukrainian citizen, Marina Voronova. Then the Belgian is murdered, and Voronova dies under mysterious circumstances. The restaurant's owner becomes Olimp Ltd., which is owned by one of the companies in the Dendy concern, which in turn is owned by Mikhail Brodsky, and the ultimate beneficiaries are criminal authorities. Brodsky's son later became the owner and director of the restaurant. Such is the simple privatization scheme, Kyiv-style.
Crook
Another source of Mikhail Brodsky's income was trust schemes. He became actively involved in them in 1996-1997. "Trust" translates from English as "trust." Surprisingly, there were many such gullible citizens in Ukraine at that time. And they entrusted their money to Dandy Bank and other entities associated with Brodsky—for example, the consumer society "Mercury," which he ran together with the notorious Alexander Presman, who in turn represented Semyon Mogilevich, and the director of this "Mercury" was the international swindler Semyon Yufa. Money was collected from citizens under the promise of huge interest rates, and... that's it, the bank or trust company would close. "Dandy Bank" alone swindled 21 people out of a total of approximately four million dollars. The same Kisel provided protection for all these structures.
Zech
But Kisel had more serious interests – he invested money in large enterprises, for example, in the same Naftogaz of Ukraine, which he ran at the time. Igor Bakai, in the metallurgical industry. In short, he was gradually striving to become a respectable businessman. Through the same Brodsky, he bought the newspapers "Kievskie Vedomosti" and "Komanda." Incidentally, here Mikhail Yuryevich again proved himself a model con man – he swindled the entire editorial staff, from journalists to couriers, out of several months' wages. And this despite the fact that, in fact, it was through the efforts of the journalists at these newspapers that he found himself in politics. It happened like this. Mikhail Brodsky had long aspired to enter politics. Back in the mid-90s, he joined the People's Movement (Narodny Rukh), his party card personally presented to him by Vyacheslav Chornovil. At that time, the Rukh members were trying to recruit businessmen into their ranks, with the idea that they would become party sponsors. But things turned out differently: Brodsky desired control over Rukh's cash flows and was expelled from the party in disgrace. In 1994, Brodsky became a deputy of the Pechersk District Council. This proved quite useful some time later, when the aforementioned scandal with Dandy Bank occurred. Back then, even district council members enjoyed immunity. But in 1998, the Constitutional Court overturned this provision, and Mikhail Yuryevich landed in prison, where he spent 41 days. He was literally rescued by journalists from his newspapers, who had actively campaigned for him. As a result, Mikhail Brodsky was elected to the Verkhovna Rada. So he arrived in the building under the dome straight from the prison bunks. And just in time. Nestor Shufrich claims that Mikhail Brodsky developed a "special personal relationship" with the late Yuri Kravchenko, then the Minister of Internal Affairs. According to some malicious tongues, it was the latter who gave the order to "put Mikhail Yuryevich down" in the pretrial detention center, to make him a "rooster." Allegedly, this was done in retaliation for Brodsky using his bank to defraud some of the minister's close associates. Rumor has it that, to end the abuse, Mikhail Brodsky was forced to purchase new televisions for the pretrial detention center and bribe his way into being transferred from the Lukyanivske to the Zhitomir pretrial detention center. But those are just rumors.
Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada
Be that as it may, Brodsky ended up in the Verkhovna Rada, running in a single-member constituency. This is where the paths of the crime boss and Mykhailo Yuryevich diverged. Back in 1996, the authorities had clamped down on Kisel, who had become too overzealous. First, they arrested his son, Vadim, and then the crime boss himself. However, both were quickly released. But Vladimir Kisel Sr. was forced to publicly announce to the entire country on the Era television channel that he was retiring and would dedicate the rest of his life to the church. Brodsky's career, however, was just beginning. Interestingly, Mykhailo Yuryevich's seat in the third Verkhovna Rada was next to Petro Poroshenko's. (read more about Petro Poroshenko in the article Petro Poroshenko: Biography and the whole truth about Ukraine's "Chocolate King"ы ). Apparently, they had a lot to talk about, since both were famous for defecting from party to party. In 1999, Brodsky founded the Yabloko party. Then he reconnected with his old acquaintance Grigory Surkis, then one of the leaders of the SDPU (o), and tried to sell his party to him. But the SDPU (o), which was then at the height of its power, had no use for Misha's party. Although, for a while, they used it for leaks and in cases where they urgently needed some kind of scandal. Brodsky committed his next major scam in the 2000s. His victim was the Russian-Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Grigorishin (Read more about Konstantin Grigorishin in the article Konstantin Grigorishin, Distinguished Oligarch of Ukraine and Russia ).
Party leader
In the early 2000s, Grigorishin began sponsoring the Yabloko party. The amount he transferred to Mikhail Brodsky is unknown, but it's known that Brodsky pocketed the lion's share. Some speculate that Brodsky was sent by Surkis to act as an insider to Konstantin Grigorishin, as a conflict over regional power companies was flaring up between them at the time. And, of course, to "milk the sucker" at the same time. The Yabloko party failed to gain a seat in the Rada in the 2002 elections, but Mikhail Yuryevich didn't have to answer the oligarch's unpleasant question: "Where's the money?" In October 2002, Grigorishin was arrested on suspicion of weapons possession and drug trafficking, and it was reportedly a call from the President of Russia that secured his release. After the incident, Konstantin Grigorishin fled to Russia and conducted all his business from Moscow, apparently writing off Brodsky's debts as a direct loss. After the Grigorishin incident, no one was rushing to sponsor the Yabloko party, and Brodsky abandoned the unprofitable project, having already found himself a cushy position on Yulia Tymoshenko's team. In March 2005, the Yabloko party decided to merge with the Batkivshchyna party. For some reason, the merger never took place, but Mykhailo Brodsky was elected to the political council of Tymoshenko's party.
Media mogul
In 2001, Brodsky created a website Columnist and uses it primarily to make money by publishing compromising information. He was arguably the first to create a scheme that still operates in Ukraine. It's as simple as two, two, three. A website publishes damning dirt on politician "A." Politician "A" comes in and asks, "How can this be?! What did you do to me?!" They explain confidentially that the material was commissioned by politician "B" and offer to publish three pieces of dirt on politician "B" for a "small" fee. Brodsky gets his money, the journalists are not offended, and politicians "A" and "B" are at odds and pay for more dirt on each other. Despite its simplicity, the scheme worked and brought in decent money and "authority" in certain circles. It was precisely these abilities of Mikhail Brodsky that found their way into his work for the Batkivshchyna party, which by then had been renamed the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. And what's more, it's worth it. Until recently, all commissioned work on Obozrevatel was personally approved by Brodsky. That's why the prices were so high—from $1500 and up. Moreover, Brodsky personally reviewed and approved the commissioned work, as he was afraid his superiors would give him a dressing down ;) (The commissioned work market knows that only the likes of Obozrevatel "suffered" from such prices.) Criminal Ukraine, Forbes, ABOUTRD, Business capital и Ukrainian Truth)
Member of the Kyiv City Council
In the 2006 local elections, Brodsky was elected to the Kyiv City Council as a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. He was most likely supported by Oleksandr Turchynov, with whom Yuriy Mykhailovych had a long-standing friendship. His tenure on the Kyiv City Council was marked by fierce confrontation and high-profile scandals involving Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi.Read more about it in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: How "Lenya Kosmos" robbed Kyiv and moved to Georgia) and Kyiv City Council Secretary Oles Dovhy. The toolkit remains unchanged: high-profile accusations of corruption, unsupported by anything other than Brodsky's fiery temperament, and, in fact, completely safe for the "young team." Occasionally, there are personal attacks and the release of piquant details. For example, that Chernovetskyi's son is a drug addict, or the accusation that Leonid Mikhailovich himself is a "foreigner" (which even sounds strange coming from a Jew). Once, during a speech, Mikhail Yuryevich used obscene language toward Sergei Zimin, a deputy from the Socialist Party of Ukraine. Zimin sent a letter to the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv regarding this, asking him to "re-educate" Mikhail Yuryevich and "set him on the path of righteousness." It was during these years that Brodsky the politician developed his signature style: outrageous behavior, loud accusations, gossip (even the most sordid), and constant hints of his own knowledge, apprehension of certain "secrets," and possession of "damning dirt." For a while, it even worked...
Political nobody
In December 2006, Brodsky publicly left the BYuT faction in the Kyiv City Council. Three months later, he decided to abandon his partners. He broke ties with the BYuT and with Yulia Tymoshenko personally, accusing the latter of selling seats on electoral lists and attempting to bribe Constitutional Court judges. He did all this in his usual style—loudly and without evidence. But it didn't work, in the sense that it didn't cause any harm to Yulia Tymoshenko. He then started a rumor that Tymoshenko and Shufrych were long-time lovers. But again, no scandal ensued, Tymoshenko remained prime minister, and Brodsky's own political future was in serious doubt. The rebranding of Yabloko as the "Free Democrats" party also failed to yield results: he received 0,12% of the vote in the Verkhovna Rada elections, a more than modest result. An attempt to take control of Cherkassy, where Brodsky has serious financial interests, which we will discuss below, also failed completely.
Businessman
Brodsky is a Kyiv resident, but since the mid-2000s, his life has been closely connected to the city of Cherkasy. For example, Mikhail Yuryevich owns the Cherkasy Monkeys basketball club. He likely bought it to cultivate a positive image. In fact, in this glorious city, he and his partner, Sergei Odarich, primarily engage in corporate raiding. The first thing they seized was the Cherkasy-based Temp plant, which employed up to 5000 residents. The takeover of the enterprise was carried out using a simple corporate raiding scheme: a small stake is acquired, which is then expanded by various means, "insiders" are installed as director and chairman of the supervisory board, and after some time, the plant declares bankruptcy and its assets are sold off. This fate befell not only the Temp plant; the Kremenchuk woodworking plant, for example, followed a similar scheme. Of all the enterprises in which Brodsky was an owner or shareholder, in addition to shopping centers, confectioneries, and restaurants, he is currently associated with the Veneto mattress company, the Zhydachiv Paper Mill, and a plywood mill in Cherkasy. Brodsky attempted to bankrupt the Zhydachiv Pulp and Paper Mill in 2014, when he was already working in government service, but apparently failed.
Official
A couple of years later, the formerly ardent BYuT member found himself in the Party of Regions camp. On March 24, 2010, then-President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Brodsky as head of the State Committee on Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship. Everyone was talking about deregulating entrepreneurial activity. Kyiv was abuzz with the Tax Maidan, which the authorities managed to partially disperse and partially buy off. And in these circumstances, it would seem, there was every opportunity to make a real political career. But our hero spent his entire career explaining why laws were failing to pass, as well as why existing laws were ineffective. Eventually, even Yanukovych expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of state entrepreneurship. It didn't help. Finally, Mykhailo Yuryevich spoke of the Ukrainian mentality, which prevents economic deregulation, and then calmed down—you can't argue with mentality, of course.
So what did Mikhail Yuryevich do in this position? We'd venture to guess that his main occupation in this high-ranking position remained extortion, corporate raiding, and scams. The story of the transfer of Kyiv land to Olimp LTD LLC—the same Olimp mentioned above—is particularly telling. Three months after Brodsky's appointment to the government, the Kyiv City Council decided to transfer a 0,084-hectare plot of land to Olimp LTD LLC for the reconstruction, operation, and maintenance of a catering establishment. The lease was for one year, with a purchase option. This would have been fine, but the land also included a staircase—an architectural landmark—as well as the Milavitsa store and part of the Kyivske café, whose owners, naturally, disagreed with the Kyiv City Council's decision. A closer examination revealed that this document completely lacked the necessary approvals. There was no approval from the Sanitary and Epidemiological Service, the Center for Urban Development and Architecture, or the State Institution for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. In other words, the decision was cooked up on the fly, hoping to force its way through. A very familiar style, isn't it? But times have changed, and the owners of the Kyivske café were not timid. Despite the increasing inspections and pressure, they nevertheless filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office and even took the case to court. Journalists also got involved. Brodsky fought like a lion, the case dragged on and on, but finally, at the end of 2011, the Kyiv District Court ruled the transfer of the land plot on Khreshchatyk Street to Olimp LTD LLC illegal. Mykhailo Yuryevich, of course, didn't give up and caused a lot of trouble for his opponents, bombarding them with complaints and denunciations at every possible level. But then 2014 came along.
Lustre
During the Euromaidan, oddly enough, Mykhailo Yuryevich failed to react quickly, apparently losing his grip. His website, Obozrevatel, poured dirt on Maidan leaders, while he himself claimed that the popular protests were bad for business. Overall, however, he maintained a fairly neutral stance. However, he was apparently reminded of the Tax Maidan, of which he had once been a staunch critic, and of his service for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. In short, on October 16, 2014, Brodsky was one of the first to be dismissed from his position in accordance with the "Law on the Purification of Power."
Today, Mikhail Brodsky is far removed from politics. However, his business is doing well. Not long ago, he and Nestor Shufrich, the same man he once spread rumors about, bought the Kyiv River Terminal in Podil. Now the boats and steamships have been removed, and another restaurant will be built there. So, restoring river navigation is out of the question. If these guys have their hands on something, they won't let go easily. He continues to appear on talk shows and programs, spreading rumors and making bold claims. For example, he claimed that Mikheil Saakashvili is a drug addict, that Vladimir Grosman will never become prime minister (he missed the mark there), or that Arseniy Yatsenyuk will go live in America (he may have been right on target there). But given his history of scams, it's unlikely any sensible political force would risk recruiting him. However, anything is possible in Ukrainian politics.
Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info
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