Oleg Tyagnibok
On August 31, in pursuit of political approval ratings, Oleh Tyahnybok and his Svoboda party inadvertently found themselves at the center of yet another scandal. During a protest against the adoption of the decentralization law near the Verkhovna Rada, Oleh Yaroslavovych behaved aggressively toward National Guard soldiers. Furthermore, the man who threw the explosive device at the soldiers' feet turned out to be a member of the Svoboda party's youth wing. These events dealt a crushing blow to Svoboda's approval ratings in Kyiv ahead of the local elections. This is far from the first and likely not the last scandal involving Oleh Tyahnybok, as his entire political career has been intertwined with criminal ties.
How Oleh Tyahnybok shouted and cursed at National Guard soldiers near the Verkhovna Rada:
The path to big politics
Born in Lviv, the capital of western Ukraine, Oleg Yaroslavovych dreamed of becoming a doctor from childhood, and so graduated from the Lviv State Medical Institute, Faculty of General Medicine, in 1993. However, he didn't complete his education there, immediately enrolling in the Law Faculty of Ivan Franko University of Lviv.
Oleg's interest in politics and public activism began during his student years. An active student, he first became the head of his medical university fraternity, and in 1991, the Lviv Student Fraternity. Three years later, he became a public representative on the Lviv Regional Council.
Oleh Yaroslavovych entered big politics during the formation of the third convocation of the Verkhovna Rada as part of the Ukrainian People's Movement faction. In 2002, he joined the Our Ukraine faction. During the third and fourth convocations, he was a member of the Verkhovna Rada Budget Committee.
"Eminent" investors
The most interesting part of Oleh Tyahnybok's political biography begins in February 2004, when he became the head of the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda." The party's first years were unsuccessful in terms of results, most likely due to the virtual absence of financial influence in the movement. In the 2006 and 2007 elections, the party failed to gain entry into parliament, and in 2008, the politician failed in the local elections in Kyiv, receiving only 2% of the vote in the race for mayor (Leonid Chernovetskyi became mayor at the time).Read more about it in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: How "Lenya Kosmos" robbed Kyiv and moved to Georgia) with the support of his "young team").
Igor Krivetsky ("Pups")
(Read more about it in the article Igor Krivetsky: Svoboda's criminal sponsors)
Then a miracle happened: investors came into the party. One of the key intermediaries in Oleh Tyahnybok's party's financing system was Ihor Kryvetsky, who only entered politics in 2010 and, it must be said, quite successfully, as by 2012 (miracle of the matter), he had already managed to become a people's deputy for the very same All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda," which had undergone a radical transformation with the influx of money into the party.
Vladimir Didukh (Vova Morda)
It was through Krivetsky that the famous Ukrainian businessman and authority Vladimir Didukh (Vova Morda) He donated funds to the party. He said he invested more than $48 million in it.
"I didn't personally give money to Tyahnybok; I gave it to Pups (Igor Krivetsky's nickname – ed.). So it wouldn't be said that a crime boss gave the party money. In this way, Pups would be transferring my money on his own. I cut off the entire party's funding. It was 500 at first, then a million, then two, then three. Then it was eight times that amount. A total of $48 million. There were times when I saw Tyahnybok every day. At the Fashion Club.", – said Vladimir Didukh
"When they got involved with Yanukovych's people, like Kurchenko, I said: 'He's importing billions of dollars' worth of gasoline under the guise of transit, and then disposing of it domestically without paying taxes.' "Kill him. You have to stop these kinds of schemes; you're the opposition, after all. And Pups told me: 'He gives us more money.' And so our relations began to deteriorate. They took money from Sivkovych and others. And when they installed Makhnitsky as Prosecutor General, it's scary to say what really happened. Svoboda started accepting money everywhere and for everything. Without Pups, no one there moved a step.", - he added.
Rumor has it that Igor Krivetsky and his business are now closely connected to Dmitry Firtash and his companies, which is not surprising, as he also had a hand in financing nationalists, but more on that later.
Ruslan Koshulinsky
One of the "important" members of Svoboda was Ruslan Koshulinsky, a rather intriguing businessman who, despite having no higher education, managed to become not only a member of parliament but also vice speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. It's noteworthy that before joining Svoboda, he had been a Komsomol organizer back in Soviet times. This is quite surprising, since it was Oleh Tyahnybok, the most ardent opponent of communist ideology, who nonetheless retained Ruslan Koshulinsky as an associate.
Roman Fedishin
Another "friend" of the party is Roman Fedyshyn, who, along with local Lviv crime bosses Myroslav Bokalo (call sign "Dushman") and Volodymyr Panasenko (call sign "Vova-desant"), had a business interest in expanding the market in Lviv. However, due to disunity among the Lviv Regional Council deputies, they were unable to achieve their goals. The issue was quickly resolved with Svoboda's rise to power, and in 2011, Fedyshyn and his "business partners" gained complete control of the Shuvar market. Apparently, Tyahnybok was generously rewarded for this by Fedyshyn's "criminal" friends, who helped them advance in the local elections in the Lviv region.
Igor Kolomoisky
Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky was also one of Oleh Tyahnybok's sponsors (which is quite odd, given that the Svoboda party has a very negative attitude toward Jews, and Oleh Tyahnybok himself is among the world's top anti-Semites). In support of the party in the Ternopil region, Ihor Kolomoisky spent 100 hryvnias in direct investment and God knows how many more indirect investments, and, of course, he clearly didn't skimp on the party leader.
Dmitry Firtash
Completing Tyahnybok's list of "friends" is gas magnate Dmytro Firtash, who made a fortune supplying Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe. Firtash is known to have financed not only Svoboda but also Vitali Klitschko's UDAR party. Most experts agree that the oligarch wants to achieve two goals: regain his footing in the gas pipeline and force the bankruptcy of Naftogaz. According to research, Firtash invested heavily in financing the Maidan protests, and the ratings of both Klitschko's party and Tyahnybok's party depend on his money. Firtash, in turn, is pursuing purely his own business interests, which are tied to the energy sector. It's no coincidence that one of the main priorities of the Svoboda party's political program is building a strong national energy policy.
As we can see, Oleh Tyahnybok has solid friends and support, or rather, he had it for a while. Currently, the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" is going through hard times, as old friends, especially those so "reliable," rarely forgive failures, which have been gradually eroding the party's ratings lately. In the upcoming local elections in Kyiv, as Tyahnybok stated, "Svoboda" has good prospects. They did.
Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info
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