"The parliament hall has a bad aura—by the end of the session, you feel drained and angry," MP Oleksiy Kucherenko complained to journalists back in 1999. This, however, didn't stop him from repeatedly infiltrating parliament, where his entire activity consisted of betraying his allies and seeking out new, wealthier ones, who then indulged in the same. Today, he's running for the Verkhovna Rada again—a parliamentary masochist of sorts, always striving to work in places where he's squeezed like a lemon and angered. A cybernetics graduate with a dissertation (I wish I could see the real author) in sociology, Kucherenko briefly headed the country's housing and utilities sector after the 2004 Maidan, after which he suddenly became a "municipal and plumbing guru," pushing the idea that he alone—the only one in Ukraine!—knows how to reform the housing and utilities sector in a particular electoral district.
From junior scientists to oil traders
The junior researcher at the Institute of Cybernetics at the Academy of National Sciences of Ukraine conducted his first "cybernetic-sociological" experiment in 1993, purchasing a batch of Chinese quilted jackets, which even in those impoverished times in Ukraine no one wanted to buy. He later admitted (why not to the investigator?) that his connection to the Minister of Trade of Turkmenistan (a Turkmen minister known to a recent student from Vinnytsia—did they smoke Ashgabat cannabis together in the dorm?) helped him. Kucherenko agreed to take the quilted jackets in exchange for... fuel oil. Thus, Kucherenko began "dealing with energy resources."
The criminal enterprise, as is well known, in this business then matched Kucherenko: Igor Bakai, Konstantin Zhevago, Alexander Volkov, and others. State-scale theft in tandem with Naftogaz of Ukraine head Bakai made Kucherenko not just rich, but very rich – the fuel oil dealer suddenly became chairman of the board of Intergaz CJSC, a shell company of Bakai's mafia, through which barter payments for Turkmen gas were conducted. Kucherenko's firm, Bari, also acted as an agent, paying for the gas of the naive Turkmen... with galoshes and other "unnecessary items," bought for next to nothing in village stores.
This gang's companies, Verona Plus and FC Trading, affiliated with Finance and Credit Bank, are also buying up for next to nothing—not galoshes, but major energy companies, Luganskoblenergo and Odesaoblenergo. Kucherenko also got his hairy paw on AvtoKrAZ and the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant, subsequently driving them to the brink with his incompetent management. (Incidentally, in light of the Ukrainian-Russian war, this is a topic for investigation not only by the Prosecutor General's Office but also by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU): under Kucherenko, AvtoKrAZ somehow lost all foreign markets in favor of exclusively Russian KamAZ!).
His business partnership with Zhevago at the Finance and Credit bank allowed Kucherenko to launder, preserve, and grow his stolen money. And, having wooed "parliament director" Oleksandr Volkov (for whom the Kucherenko-Zhevago duo laundered millions of corrupt funds), "Kucher," as his fellow deputies called him, coaxed the governorship of the Zaporizhia region from President Kuchma through him—thinking he'd make a grand buck.
Naturally, with the arrival of this cybernetic swindler in Zaporizhzhia, scandals erupted, stemming from this marauder's attempts to "squeeze out" the most profitable enterprises. Finance and Credit immediately opened its greedy jaws to the Zaporizhzhia Aluminum Plant, the Tavrichesky Mining and Processing Plant, Zaporizhzhiablenergo, and others. Well, in the case of ZALK, despite Kucherenko's brazen pressure on the head of the State Property Fund, Oleksandr Bondar, things didn't work out. And here, too, the scoundrel didn't lose his way, lobbying for the sale of a STRATEGIC enterprise to the Russians (naturally, not for his lecherous, pig-eyed scam). Kuchma immediately sobered up and kicked this "expert" out of the park – a shame we didn't have the practice of instantly jailing people for such things back then.
And instead of sewing workwear at the N-th Industrial Plant, "Kucher" began to pounce on privatized state property like a drunken, lustful satyr on a goat. He immediately wanted to snatch up Rivneazot, the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant, the Khartsyzsk Pipe Plant, and the Lviv Bus Plant. Since he couldn't do it fairly—the State Property Fund had already seen through the privatization scum—Kucherenko's struggle for the loot was accompanied by scandals, lawsuits, and corporate raids.
International criminal, murderer or plumber?
The thirst for state property and cash forced "Kucher" to completely lose his sense of smell and enter into partnerships with international criminal kingpins like Semyon Mogilevich. It seems the FBI's "Kucherenko Oleksii" file contains much of interest on this matter.
And in the case of Luganskoblenergo, our hero's greed, insolence, and lack of principles exceeded the limits of criminal liability: during yet another corporate raid, Luganskoblenergo's chairman, Mikhail Polyakov, died of a heart attack.
Kucherenko, a former sincere Kuchmist, was saved from trial and imprisonment by defecting to the "democrats" and becoming a fervent Yushchenko supporter. After the 2004 Maidan, where our cybernetic raider pounced like a bull on a sheep from a lack of cows, Kucherenko abruptly changed his career and became Minister of Housing and Public Utilities—the universe's leading sewerage expert and guru of the galaxy's waste-and-feces systems. Alas, he was kicked out of there as well due to his incompetence.
"I literally became ill with government problems (emphasis added – Ed.), which immediately harmed my business," he complained to journalists. "After that, I only lost business." What a shame. The oligarch, having lost his business, became impoverished, went bankrupt, and now here he is again, begging to be "fed" by the Verkhovna Rada.
Now a consistent Kuchmite and faithful Yushchenkoite has suddenly become the most devoted Poroshenkoite. “The team that has united in the party “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” will form a strong pro-European and pro-Ukrainian majority in the upcoming Verkhovna Rada,” states the professional traitor Kucherenko in his election program. Yes, now it’s time for him to write a dissertation on cynicism.
Why the current president invited him to join his team is a mystery. While his tenure as governor of Zaporizhia didn't result in any criminal charges, after Kucherenko's tenure as head of the Ministry of Housing and Utilities, the Prosecutor General's Office had millions of questions for Oleksiy Yuryevich regarding his ties to the "utilities mafia." Consumers of utilities (that is, all of us, to whom "Kucher" is now whining, "Elect me, I'm a good guy!") simply cursed the minister out loud: despite his verbal nonsense about "reforms," nothing had changed. On the contrary, under Kucherenko, the housing and utilities complex was even more eager to cheat Ukrainians on services and raise tariffs.
"I had an alibi: the ministry was broke!" this Panikovsky, the Housing and Utilities Minister, justified himself back then. And today, this same amateur, who boasted that an entire ministry was sucking his paw, wants to be a legislator? For pity's sake, what about lustration? Why is this complete ignoramus in anything (except successfully stealing for his own pocket) feeding us nonsense in every media outlet imaginable about his "resolute reformism" when his place is by the toilet?
Prison, madhouse or parliament?
Certain aspects of Kucherenko's behavior raise doubts about his mental health. We've already discussed parliamentary masochism. But there's a whole complex of problems there, as Dr. Freud would have it. A man who seriously collects Napoleon statues and busts these days demonstrates better than any diagnosis that he has an extremely inflated sense of self-esteem. Masochism, laced with a "Napoleon complex," coupled with kleptomania on a national scale—well, who could possibly qualify for the Verkhovna Rada?
It should be shown to specialized doctors; that's where the material for future dissertations lies. Say, "Correction of Side Effects of Antipsychotic Therapy in Patients with Schizophrenia Caused by Parliamentary Masochism" or "Sexual Dysfunctions in Men with Disorders Occurring in the Combination of the 'Napoleon Complex' and Congenital Kleptomania."
Just think how many people could be saved! And such a science would be a wonderful aid to lustration and the purge of parliament of the sick and simply criminals...
… "So, are you planning to return to power after all?" Alexey Kucherenko was asked once, even before the 2014 Maidan. "On the one hand, I certainly want to be there. But I don't want to be in a magazine. Because a magazine fits into a pistol, and I don't like any pistol yet." (Isn't that a psychiatrist's answer? – Ed.)
Today, going to the elections, it turns out that Kucherenko has chosen his “gun”.
And we have to sit and think: who is this man with a gun: a criminal killer, a psychopathic maniac, or just a quiet thief, albeit on a large scale?
Hour from hour is not easier.
Igor Nikolaev, for ORD
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