Pavel Rizanenko
While the SBU searches for "Kremlin agents" on social media, the real agents of the Russian intelligence services are working right under their noses, sometimes even in plain sight, without even trying to disguise their intentions. No, they're not engaged in "propaganda of the Russian world" or any other nonsense; they're simply lobbying for Russia's interests, which is gradually taking over the Ukrainian economy, including strategic defense enterprises. And yet, they are members of the pro-presidential faction, whose leaders trumpet daily about the fight against the "Russian aggressor."
Director from the "KGB firm"
Pavel Aleksandrovich Rizanenko was born on July 12, 1975, in the village of Krasilovka, Brovary District (near Kyiv). A diligent and capable young man, he graduated from Brovary Secondary School No. 2 with a silver medal in 1992. He then entered the Kyiv Institute of Trade and Economics (now University), where he studied from 1992 to 1994. But instead of serving his military service, he went to study in America, receiving a grant from the NAFSA/USAID agency of the US State Department. According to information available to Skelet.Org , Pavel Rizanenko owed this grant, as well as his subsequent success, not only to his excellent academic performance but also to his ability to serve his superiors.
In 1996, he graduated from Graceland College in the United States with a bachelor's degree (a four-year university degree) in Economics and Business Administration. He only earned his master's degree in 2016, at the Ukrainian University of Banking (formerly the Kyiv branch of the Lviv Finance and Credit College), when he was already a seasoned and well-connected member of parliament.
Pavel Rizanenko's career began at the Ukrainian branch of the international audit firm Ernst & Young, where he was also placed by the Americans. After working for about three years as an auditor and senior auditor, in 1999 Rizanenko accepted a much more promising offer: in Moscow, at Troika Dialog Investment Company. This company was founded in the early 90s by Russian émigré Peter Derby and Armenian-Russian businessman Ruben Vardanyan and rose through voucher privatization. From 1995 to 2003, the company was owned by Bank of Moscow, founded and controlled by Yuri Luzhkov and Pavel Borodin (called the "father of the Putin project"). In five years, Rizanenko rose through the ranks from consultant to director of investment banking. In 2005, when Troika Dialog was finally acquired by its founders, Rizanenko transferred to the Renaissance Capital group, also as director of investment banking and responsible for the mining and metals division. He simultaneously became a member of the board of directors of the Russian corporation VSMPO-AVISMA.
These dry facts about Rizanenko's biography conceal curious details. For example, Renaissance Capital is known as one of the "KGB firms" through which former and current leaders of the Soviet and Russian intelligence agencies conducted large-scale economic activity on a global scale. And one of the founders and owners of the VSMPO-AVISMA corporation, which produced titanium for the aerospace industry, was Vyacheslav Bresht, a former colonel in the 1st Directorate of the KGB (foreign intelligence). According to numerous Skelet.Org sources , Bresht was Pavel Rizanenko's patron and personally promoted the "talented young man," who reciprocated his helpfulness and trust in various sensitive matters. Through Bresht, he met and became close to many former KGB and GRU agents, with whom he has maintained ties to this day. However, as we know, there are no former KGB officers. And Pavel Rizanenko is sometimes called a planted Russian Cossack – and now we see why exactly.
Vyacheslav Bresht
But there are other details. For example, when Bresht was merging VSMPO and AVISMA into a single corporation, he was assisted by lawyers from Troika Dialog and Rizanenko himself. And this wasn't just a merger, but a highly aggressive takeover, accompanied by a battle with competitors—one of whom was billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. He was dealt with a year later: as soon as Rizanenko moved to Renaissance Capital, which became a minority shareholder in the corporation, this group helped Bresht oust Vekselberg from the list of VSMPO-AVISMA's major shareholders, for which Bresht granted Rizanenko a seat on the board of directors.
Sergey Chemezov
But the celebration was short-lived. Vekselberg kicked up a fuss, and the Kremlin heard about the dispute over Russia's largest titanium asset. All VSMPO-AVISMA shareholders were invited to the general office of Rosoboronexport, a state-owned company created by Putin, to whose head he personally appointed Sergei Chemezov. Who is Chemezov? When Putin was still a KGB officer and worked in Dresden, where he lived at 101 Radebergerstrasse, his neighbor was Sergei Chemezov, a representative of the secret ENO "Luch," with whom he had both professional and personal encounters. This makes Chemezov one of the Russian president's oldest friends, dating back to his pre-St. Petersburg days, a proven veteran of the Soviet KGB.
So, the Kremlin decided that such a strategically important enterprise as VSMPO-AVISMA should be returned to state control. Chemezov, acting on Putin's instructions, summoned VSMPO-AVISMA shareholders to a meeting, also attended by FSB and Defense Ministry generals, as well as representatives of the Kremlin administration, and offered them the opportunity to sell their shares to Rosoboronexport. They didn't object, understanding that otherwise their shares would be confiscated, not bought out.
Chemezov did indeed offer them a good price, nearly a billion dollars from a Sberbank loan (they were paid from state funds), and he didn't shortchange Bresht's former managers either. Although Rizanenko lost his seat on the VSMPO-AVISMA board of directors, he continued working at Renaissance Capital—officially until 2007. That was until Rosoboronexport was renamed Rostec and began a serious expansion into foreign markets, no longer just seeking sales but also similar enterprises to buy up or destroy. Rostec also targeted Ukrainian enterprises. And that's where the huge gaps in Pavel Rizanenko's biography began...
The Fight for Titanium
In November 2005, VSMPO-AVISMA acquired 100% of the shares of the Swedish company Carl. Edblom. Titan AB, which in turn owned 51% of the shares of CETAB Nikopol, which accounted for 20% of the global production of seamless titanium pipes. Following this transaction, the company was renamed VSMPO-AVISMA Pipe Plant CJSC (EDRPOU 31576440), and it became the actual property of the Russian corporation. Since 2006, it has been owned and controlled by the Kremlin's Rostec. Pavel Rizanenko also participated in the purchase of this Ukrainian enterprise. At the time, he was not only a top manager of a Russian company and a Russian citizen (in addition to his Russian passport, Rizanenko also holds a Russian tax identification number (TIN) 770600208413, which you will learn about later), but also a true Russian patriot. After this successful deal, he publicly celebrated the success—no, not even of his company, but of the Russian defense industry! He stated the following verbatim in an interview with journalists:
Rizanenko wasn't exaggerating: the Nikopol plant's output was indeed crucial for the Russian military-industrial complex, especially for the construction of new Russian warships and nuclear submarines. And since 2005, a Ukrainian plant has been helping build them! But the phrase "returned the asset" is even more jarring! Similarly, in 2014, Rizanenko's Kremlin friends would call the annexation of Crimea a "return," bringing the Crimean Titan plant, which they had coveted for many years, under their complete control. According to several Skelet.Org sources , it was precisely to acquire Titan and other Ukrainian titanium enterprises that they dispatched Pavel Rizanenko, infiltrating him into the Ukrainian government.
There's a strange gap in Rizanenko's work history: from 2007, when he allegedly resigned from Renaissance Capital, to 2010, when he resurfaced in his native Brovary as a city council member, running for Serhiy Tihipko's Strong Ukraine party . What was he doing during those three years? And where? Why did he leave lucrative positions at leading Russian corporations and return home to Ukraine? There are no answers yet, but Pavel Rizanenko clearly has something to hide from Ukrainian voters—and possibly even from Ukrainian counterintelligence.
Incidentally, his return to his native Brovary was no coincidence: Rizanenko immediately became interested in the local enterprise, the Powder Metallurgy Plant, which is capable of processing titanium alloys and is therefore of interest to VSMPO-AVISMA and Rostec. And what a curious coincidence: Rizanenko "materialized" in Brovary immediately after the American company ADMA Products expressed interest in the plant in late 2009. Perhaps Rizanenko's goal was to prevent the plant from falling under American control. Well, the result of Rizanenko's actions was that the plant came under the control of... pro-Russian MP Oleg Tsarev , who retained control until 2015, after which Gennady Chekita's associate was appointed director of the plant.
In 2011, a former Renaissance Capital top manager, embracing the role of a Ukrainian activist, founded and headed the NGO "Transparent Society" in Brovary. He promised his fellow residents to fight against the plundering of a city park, illegal construction and leasing, restore kindergartens for children, secure free school transportation from the city government, and much more. But he never fulfilled his promises. He needed to explain himself, and so in February 2012, Rizanenko staged an attack on himself and his driver. He staged it because the "concussion and broken arm" he claimed turned out to be minor bruises, but the media frenzy surrounding the "attack on the leader of a social movement" was enormous—it was generated by Rizanenko himself and his aides. Incidentally, at the time, Rizanenko completely denied owning a business and never disclosed his sources of income. So how did he survive and support his NGO? Perhaps he was paid travel expenses from Rostec's special funds?
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Pavel Rizanenko: Putin's Rostec's planted Cossack PART 2
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