Mikhail Grinshpon: Ukraine's Space "Sawyer." Part 1

Mikhail Grinshpon: Ukraine's Space "Sawyer." Part 1

Sometimes they return—those who carved up Ukrainian land, plundered the Ukrainian army, and stole budget funds, then lay low for several years, hoping their past "exploits" would be forgotten. They return because they simply cannot help but carve up and "saw up" again. That's how it is in the feed. Radio Liberty Mikhail Grinshpon's name cropped up again, again in the context of yet another real estate scandal. However, as Skelet.Org discovered, Grinshpon was involved in clever scams not only involving land, but also military transport aircraft, and even in low-Earth orbit!

Two old buildings at 17 and 19 Turgenevskaya Street have been used as sets for films about the Great Patriotic War for several years now. One of them doesn't even have a roof or flooring—as if it hadn't been there since 1943. However, ten years ago, when the Ukrainian Industrial Group purchased the buildings, they had a shabby but perfectly livable appearance. Then they turned out to be architectural monuments of Kyiv, which couldn't simply be torn down to build another high-rise or parking lot. So their owners, on the advice of their friend and partner, Mikhail Grinshpon, decided to wait a bit—until the buildings deteriorated to the point of becoming unsafe. Judging by the fact that someone has already removed the roof and removed the flooring, it's clear they've decided to help them fall into disrepair.

Mikhail Grinshpon and the Bandit Syndicate

Mykhailo Petrovich Grinshpon was born on December 5, 1952, presumably in the village of Maidan, where he was registered at Chervonoarmiyskaya-3, in an unknown district (there are two dozen Maidan villages in Ukraine). This uncertainty stems from the fact that the former advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine (1996-2000) and then advisor to the head of the State Space Agency (2003-2014) seems to be expunging all information about his life and work from public sources. Based on the number of "dead" links in search engines, showing "page modified" or "page deleted," Mykhailo Grinshpon is perhaps among the most covert Ukrainian businessmen and former officials. This is what attracts attention, because the absence of information, and especially disappearing information, is also food for thought. Grinshpon had previously appeared infrequently in the media, and even his former positions speak eloquently of his preference for hidden methods and shady schemes: he always preferred to remain a faceless advisor, a grey cardinal, although his influence far exceeded that of those to whom he gave his advice.

From 1974 to 1990, Mikhail Grinshpon held senior positions at ATP-1 Kyivmiskbud, starting as an engineer and ending as deputy director. So he likely had a long-standing relationship with another prominent Kyiv builder. Grigory SurkisHe then went into business: in 1990-1991, Grinshpon headed the Kyiv branch of the Radon consortium, then became director of the Intercrez firm and director of the Kyiv regional directorate of the Don NVO, and in 1993, he co-founded Kyiv-Donbass. And then he became involved in a rather interesting criminal case—or rather, a case closely connected to the criminal underworld of the time.

It was only twenty years later that Leonid Roytman, a former member of the Ukrainian-American "Russian mafia" (of Jewish descent), revealed the truth. In his scandalous, revealing interview, he named numerous high-profile politicians and businessmen (both then and present, those "targeted" and those still alive), including Mikhail Grinshpon.

According to Roytman, in 1994, the new Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, was just beginning to get used to his very difficult role: already established organized crime groups and semi-criminal corporations attempted to take control of him and made demands of him. In particular, the leader of the Donetsk organized crime group, Akhat Bragin (Alik Grek), wanted Kuchma to hand over all gas schemes in Ukraine to him – otherwise, he threatened to assassinate the president. After this, Kuchma, through Kobzon and Luzhkov, turned to the "international authority" Vyacheslav Ivankov (Mishka Yaponchik) for help. Ivankov was already living in the United States at the time and had common "deals" with Semyon Mogilevich's group, which included or was associated with such figures as Oleg Asmakov (Alik Magadan), Monya Elson, and Leonid Roytman. Konstantinovsky brothersIn short, according to Roytman, "a man from Donetsk" was invited to negotiations all the way to New York, and this man was Mikhail Grinshpon. Also present at this meeting was Alexander Levin (Mogilevich's man), who was just returning to Ukraine after several years of exile.

Alexander Levin

Roytman did not specify Mikhail Grinshpon's exact connection to the "Donetsk gang" at the time. Some believe he was merely a negotiator, a go-between, representing not so much Bragin's organized crime group as the Donetsk officials associated with it, who approached him as someone with strong connections in Kyiv. Furthermore, information that Mikhail Grinshpon traveled to New York after becoming a co-founder and director of the Kyiv-Donbass company suggests a direct connection to another founder of that company. Viktor TopolovHe is also a very secretive person, although he is not so zealous in erasing his past.

The New York meeting resulted in the merger of Kyiv-Donbass (Topolov, Grinshpon) with the assets of the Mogilevich-Asmakov group. According to sources Skelet.OrgMogilevich not only thwarted Alik Grek's claims against Kuchma but also kicked the "Donetsk gang" out of Kyiv-Donbass, taking their stake—for which purpose, in late 1994, the company was re-registered as a holding company. Thus, the new shareholders of Kyiv-Donbass were Asmakov (who moved back to Kyiv to manage the business; the Konstantinovsky brothers would later take over the murdered Asmakov's stake), Roytman, and Levin—the latter of whom began managing the company together with Grinshpon. Judging by the fact that Grinshpon (like Topolov) lost nothing in the process, he clearly had found common ground with Mogilevich's gangsters back in New York, and perhaps even earlier—but only in his own interests, not those of Akhat Bragin's organized crime group, who was killed a few months later.

How Ukraine's military transport aircraft were plundered

On December 25, 1997, at a plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada, the issue of providing telephone service to veterans of the Great Patriotic War was being discussed, and deputies were debating where to obtain the necessary funds. Then Anatoly Yermak, a member of the Committee for Combating Organized Crime, took the floor and stated the following:

"Today, the Armed Forces are being dismantled, sold off. I can cite countless examples of people like Grinshpon and others like him removing aircraft and equipment directly from combat duty, squandering it, and neither the Armed Forces nor those who defend the country gain anything from this!"

However, both the members of parliament and the Cabinet representatives present in the hall turned a deaf ear to Yermak's words, the best proof of which was the creation of the state-owned enterprise "Ukrainian Aviation Transport Company" (SATC) in November of that same year, 1997 (just a month before this speech). Its creation was lobbied for by Defense Minister Advisor Mykhailo Grinshpon, and it was headed by Mykola Mayak—despite the fact that both men already had a more than scandalous reputation for corruption.

Nikolai Mayak

Back in 1995, Nikolai Mayak, the founder of Aviter LLC and the developer of schemes for using Ukraine's military transport aircraft fleet for commercial purposes, contributed to the creation of Antonov Aerotrek International Airlines. Twenty An-12 military transport aircraft were transferred to its balance sheet at "residual value" (for pennies). Antonov Aerotrek soon went bankrupt, and its aircraft "flew away" somewhere—either to Africa, China, or Jordan. But Mayak didn't stop there; he had a much larger project in mind! He was assisted in this by Mikhail Grinshpon, who, in 1996, had taken a position as an advisor to Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk—combining this work with the management of the Kyiv-Donbass company, where he received generals, military-industrial complex directors, and army contractors in his office. According to available information, Skelet.Org According to information, Grinshpon initially oversaw the fuel issue, but sources disagree on what exactly the Kyiv-Donbass structures were doing at the time: either selling fuel to the army at inflated prices, or buying it for pennies from strategic reserves (possibly both).

Grinshpon quickly became a far more influential and significant figure in the Ministry of Defense than Kuzmuk himself. From 1996-98, Grinshpon even headed the CSKA sports club (and created several LLCs on its basis). However, Grinshpon excelled most in three areas: selling Ukrainian weapons abroad (especially to perpetually war-torn Africa), corrupt procurement for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and exploiting Ukrainian military transport aircraft for commercial business and smuggling. Grinshpon handled aircraft behind Mykola Mayak, but he profited from procurement by partnering with Anatoly Stepanovich Dovgopoly, Deputy Minister of Defense for Economic Activities and Material Support (1996-2000). The former engineer at the Kyiv design bureau of the Arsenal plant turned out to be quite a resourceful businessman!

Anatoly Dovgopoly

The activities of Mikhail Grinshpon and his business partners in the Ministry of Defense caused irreparable damage to the Ukrainian armed forces: they were effectively plundered and ruined. Thus, the state-owned enterprise "UATC" was given 175 transport aircraft and helicopters (almost the entire military transport fleet of the Ukrainian Armed Forces), including 99 Il-76DM, 20 Mi-8, as well as military airfields in Zaporizhzhia, Stryi, and Uzyn. Just a month after the creation of "UATC," Grinshpon and Mayak secured permission to earn funds for fleet repairs through the commercial use of aircraft and the sale of "decommissioned" equipment and spare parts. However, despite the fact that "UATC" aircraft nonstop transported weapons, indigenous troops, and contraband over Africa, the company declared multimillion-dollar losses (28 million for the period 1998-2002). And this despite the fact that its planes returned to Ukraine with boxes full of cash dollars: customs officials twice found such surprises, not to mention contraband cigarettes and alcohol. The secret was simple: Mayak and Grinshpon subleased UATC planes to their own companies, which pocketed all the profits, while UATC bore the operating costs.

Here's how much Grinshpon and Mayak were selling the supposedly decommissioned aircraft for: three An-26s for $600,000 (1999, Angola), four Il-76s plus "spare" engines for $8,132 million (2000). Furthermore, the mercilessly exploited aircraft were prone to accidents (23 Ukrainian pilots died in Africa alone over a five-year period). By 2001, the UATK fleet had been reduced by a third (by 2008, several times), and this marked the beginning of the destruction of Ukrainian military transport aviation. It reached the point where Ukraine's airborne troops essentially became mere motorized infantry, because large-scale exercises involving the airdrop of personnel and equipment were a thing of the past. This backfired in 2014, when it became impossible to quickly redeploy loyalist military units to Crimea.

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org

CONTINUED: Mikhail Grinshpon: Ukraine's Space "Sawyer." Part 2

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