Serhiy and Volodymyr Kal'tsev: the long-rotten pillars of the Opposition Platform - For Life party in Zaporizhzhia. Part 2
In April 1998, Volodymyr Kuratchenko, former director of Radiopribor and former Minister of Mechanical Engineering, was appointed head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration. In January 1999, Kuratchenko returned to Kyiv to serve as deputy prime minister, and Yevhen Kartashov, former deputy director of foreign economic relations at Zaporizhstal and also known as the leader of the "Indusov" clan (from the name of Industrialbank, through which Zaporizhstal's finances were channeled), became governor. However, in November of that year, Kartashov was removed and sent to Kazakhstan for a year as ambassador, while Kuratchenko was reinstated as the regional state administration leader, remaining there until June 2000, when he returned to Kyiv to serve as head of the State Reserve Committee.
The Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration was headed by Oleksiy Kucherenko, head of the supervisory board of the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant (the future Minister of Housing and Public Utilities), but he was removed in March 2001 and replaced by Serhiy Sazonov (a future member of Batkivshchyna), who served for only four days. Kartashov was then reinstated as governor, serving for quite a long time, until July 2003, when he won the mayoral election and ceded the governor's seat to the quiet Vladimir Berezovsky. This marked the near end of the "Great Troubles" of 1998-2003 in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. However, a fierce battle for the mayor's seat continued for several more years within the city government.
In February 2000, Oleksandr Golovko was forced to resign, a resignation that pro-government city media outlets and publications controlled by the Kaltsev brothers attempted to make look honorable. In the snap elections held on June 4, 2000, with a turnout of only 33%, General Oleksandr Polyak, the former head of the Zaporizhzhia criminal police and the main opponent of Golovko and the Kaltsev brothers, won. Two years later, the regular mayoral elections were held, in which Polyak again won, receiving 65%. Volodymyr Kaltsev, who attempted to become mayor himself, received only 20%.
A cartoon about the 2002 Zaporizhzhia mayoral elections
However, in February 2003, Alexander Polyak died suddenly—officially of a heart attack. A new snap mayoral election was held (turnout was 44%), in which Vladimir Kaltsev again ran. But he only came in second with 27%, losing to Yevgeny Kartashov (49%). The 2006 elections proved to be the Kaltsevs' most significant, and they prepared for them meticulously and in advance. To begin with, Vladimir Kaltsev formed a powerful alliance with Boris Petrov, director of Ukrgrafit, a member of the Party of Regions since 2001 and associated with the Klyuev brothers . It was through him that the Kaltsev brothers joined the Party of Regions! The alliance was so strong that local media repeatedly referred to it as the "Petrov-Kaltsev clan."
Vladimir Kaltsev and Boris Petrov
Thanks to Petrov, the brothers managed to carry out an intra-party coup. After a protracted series of intrigues, they literally ejected Yevhen Kartashov from the Party of Regions—despite the fact that he was one of the founders and leaders of the party's regional organization (2003), the initiator of the 4th Party of Regions Congress in Zaporizhzhia (2004), where Yanukovych was nominated as a presidential candidate, and an active organizer of the first Severodonetsk Congress (2004). By the spring elections of 2006, the Kaltsev brothers had established control over the Party of Regions' campaign headquarters (which was protected by their own private security company) and distributed quotas among their own people. Razgulyaev and several other trusted Kaltsev associates were elected to the city council on the Party of Regions list (and the faction was headed by Andriy Ivanov, Petrov's nephew). Serhiy Kaltsev and Boris Petrov won seats in the Verkhovna Rada on the Party of Regions list, while Volodymyr Kaltsev ran for mayor again, this time under the banner of the popular Party of Regions—although he again lost to Yevhen Kartashov (30% to 36%). The Kaltsevs' revenge was terrifying: in October 2006, through the Party of Regions faction they controlled in the city council, they initiated the dissolution of the city executive committee and immediately expelled Kartashov from the Party of Regions. Kartashov traveled to Kyiv for justice, met with Yanukovych, and was reinstated in the Party of Regions by a decision of the party's central political council. However, a couple of weeks later, Petrov and the Kaltsevs convened the regional organization and expelled Kartashov again.
Vladimir Kaltsev
From May 2006 until the spring of 2014, Volodymyr Kaltsev headed the Zaporizhzhia city branch of the Party of Regions, which didn't stop him from becoming deputy head of the regional state administration for finance and foreign economic activity in December 2006. At the time, the regional administration was headed by Yevhen Chervonenko , one of the most ardent "orange" supporters! Kaltsev worked productively under him throughout 2007, and after Chervonenko's resignation, he served for another five months as deputy to his successor, Valeriy Cherkaska , then a member of the BYuT. Power and money are nothing to the Kaltsevs!
Serhiy Kaltsev, however, had no luck in the 2007 snap parliamentary elections: for some reason, he was relegated to the very bottom of the Party of Regions list in Kyiv and failed to gain a seat in parliament. According to Skelet.Org, the reason was that Yanukovych's comrades were very dissatisfied with the brothers' arbitrary rule.
Immediately after Yanukovych's victory in 2010, Borys Petrov was appointed head of the Zaporizhia Regional State Administration. The Kaltsevs, along with their new allies, the vodka producers Yevhen Chernyak (owner of Khortytsia) and Borys Shestopalov (Khlibodar holding company), rejoiced in anticipation of a major comeback! Their first move was to remove Kartashov from his post as mayor early—this occurred in September, a month before the official local elections. Simultaneously, the city council voted to replace its secretary, electing Volodymyr Kaltsev as the new acting mayor (he was re-elected as secretary in the next city council). Volodymyr Kaltsev was hoping this would finally help him win the election. But, alas! Despite the commissioned exit polls that proclaimed Kaltsev's victory, which were provided to him by Svetlana Pokhodenko, director of the information and consulting group Solving, the mayor's seat went to Alexander Sin, the leading BYuT member in Zaporizhzhia.
Serhiy and Volodymyr Kal'tsev: the long-rotten pillars of the Opposition Platform - For Life party in Zaporizhzhia. Part 2
However, during his two months as acting director (before Sin assumed his post), Vladimir Kaltsev managed to appoint his people as directors of eight municipal enterprises in the city, and they immediately signed long-term contracts (up to five years) with the companies Kaltsev had nominated. According to Skelet.Org , just a year later, a criminal case was opened against one of these directors.
In Kyiv, Yanukovych's election results in Zaporizhia, where a Tymoshenko ally won the mayoral seat and the BYuT and Front for Change won 12 of 45 seats on the city council, were met with dismal reception. Consequently, full responsibility was placed on the local party leadership, the acting mayor, and the governor. The ground beneath Petrov and Kaltsev began to tremble, and their rivals immediately took advantage of this, bombarding Kyiv with denunciations and complaints. And so, in October 2011, Petrov was removed from his position as head of the Zaporizhia Regional State Administration, being transferred to a presidential advisory post (after 2014, Petrov's trail disappeared). At the same time, he also lost his post as head of the regional Party of Regions organization. All of this fell to Oleksandr Peklushenko, who overthrew the "Petrov-Kaltsev clan" with the help of Yevhen Anisimov, who was called Yuriy Ivanyushchenko's "overseer" in Zaporizhzhia , as well as his close ties to Yanukovych himself. Things were so serious that in February 2012, Volodymyr Kaltsev, in fear, resigned as secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council and even announced his retirement from politics. However, he was graciously allowed to continue leading the city branch of the Party of Regions, largely because its activities were supported by the Kaltsevs' firms. Moreover, in the 2012 parliamentary elections, Sergei Kaltsev was allowed to run under the Party of Regions banner in the 75th majoritarian district—and he still won the mandate, despite being accused of massive vote fraud , and his "honest victory" was claimed by the same Svetlana Pokhodenko with her fake exit polls.
The Kaltsev Brothers: From Party to Party
Pekshulenko remained governor until March 2014, supporting the local Anti-Maidan movement, and was then dismissed by Turchynov. No sooner had he lost his position than the Kaltsev brothers attempted to seize control of the regional Party of Regions organization from him. They didn't follow through only because the crumbling Party of Regions was already living out its final days. A year later, in March 2015, former Governor Peklushenko was shot and killed by an unknown assassin. The killers, in fact, were never found.
After the events of the winter and spring of 2014, the Kaltsevs kept a low profile for a year, fearing that their active past in the Party of Regions would be recalled. But then, in the summer of 2015, they triumphantly returned to politics. Volodymyr Kaltsev made quite a spectacle of his return, beautifully deceiving his fellow countrymen with speeches about the project of "our Zaporizhzhia party," subtly playing on either the parochial "patriotism" or the mild separatism of the Zaporizhzhia residents. But in reality, it turned out that he was promoting the "Our Land" party, which soon acquired a reputation as a "refuge for scoundrels" and a political project of Bankova, created to siphon votes from the Opposition Bloc. The Opposition Bloc gained votes primarily by "seeding" buckwheat, sugar, and simply handing out cash under the guise of aid to the poor.
Sergei Kaltsev is "seeding" the electorate with gifts
The brothers, as usual, took control of a new political force: Serhiy Kaltsev headed the regional organization of "Our Land" and was elected to the regional council as its representative, while Volodymyr Kaltsev became a member of the party's political council and was elected to the Zaporizhzhia city council. Moreover, the latter liked to boast from 2015 to 2017 that "Our Land" was supposedly conceived and created in the office of his company, "Alexander." However, with the decline of "Our Land"'s ratings and the end of its support from the Bankova (Bankova) party after Poroshenko's replacement by Zelensky, the Kaltsev brothers decided to change their political orientation again, joining the more promising Opposition Platform — For Life (OPZZh) project. And now Serhiy Kaltsev, who was elected to the regional council as a representative of "Our Land," has become the head of the OPZZh faction there. Vladimir Kaltsev, who headed the regional branch of the Opposition Platform – For Life, received the 24th place on the party list in the 2019 elections and was elected as a people's deputy for the first time in his life, soon earning fame as the "button pusher of the year."
But before the brothers had time to settle into their new party, they resumed their old intrigues. For example, in the 2020 local elections, the Kaltsev brothers withdrew from the race for mayor of Zaporizhzhia, opting to support Volodymyr Buryak and his puppet party. Considering Buryak is an Akhmetov protégé, considered an enemy of the Opposition Platform – For Life (OPFL) party (formed by Opposition Bloc deputies who defected from Akhmetov), the Kaltsev brothers' actions were bound to raise serious questions within the OPFL leadership. The Kaltsev brothers themselves took the risk, hoping for a lucrative alliance with Buryak, hoping that the OPFL would form a coalition with Buryak's party in the city council (the Kaltsevs may have also promised this to Medvedchuk ). Ultimately, Buryak abandoned the coalition, and the Kaltsev brothers were left high and dry—but they justified everything by citing Buryak's treachery. During these elections, the Kaltsevs also inserted their people into the electoral lists of "Our Region ," where one could find exit poll participant Svetlana Pokhodenko and her daughter, Kaltsev's political strategist Striganov, and Vladimir Kaltsev's former assistant, Andrei Gorsky.
If the Kaltsev brothers were playing a similar game on multiple fronts during the period of the OPZZh's growing popularity and influence, what are they up to now, when the party is under enormous pressure from Bankova? One thing is certain: if the OPZZh ship were to sink, the first rats to flee would be the Kaltsev brothers!
Vladimir Kaltsev: Raider, Deceiver, Animal Killer
For those whose faith in the Opposition Platform — For Life party remains unshaken by the Kaltsevs' political intrigues described here, it will likely be interesting to learn other information about the brothers. For example, Vladimir Kaltsev, a member of the For Life party, is an avid killer of animals from faraway Africa, where he regularly went on safari. Either he didn't get enough shooting in Afghanistan, or he has such peculiar ideas about "entertainment." In any case, such hunting, which consists of the planned shooting of animals, is not at all cool; it merely soothes the dark soul with the act of killing itself. And these days, it's considered downright discreditable for any parliamentary politician—and not just in Western countries, where photos like these would have earned Vladimir Kaltsev not votes but a bucket of blood from animal rights activists. It seems that many Ukrainians will also not like the fact that Vladimir Kaltsev, for his own “entertainment,” killed a kind, intelligent elephant, a peaceful antelope, a beautiful, proud lion, and other animals that also have a right to life.
Victims of Vladimir Kaltsev's "entertainment"
Here's proof of the insincerity of Vladimir Kaltsev's political statements. Residents of Zaporizhzhia have likely heard him make numerous "pro-Russian, anti-Western" speeches, both before, when he was a member of the Party of Regions and now, when he has settled into the Opposition Platform - For Life party. There's nothing seditious or "anti-Ukrainian" about this; it's a normal, healthy political position, shared and supported by many Ukrainians. But criticizing the West from the podium and then sending your children there to study and live—that's hypocrisy and voter deception! And here's a fact: his son, Alexander Kaltsev, went to study in the United States back in 2009, where he graduated from a private school, then graduated with a degree in economics from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and completed an internship at Bloomberg. He stayed to live and work in the States, occasionally traveling to Hong Kong and Singapore. He married (his wife's name is Angelina), and they have two children with distinctly non-Russian and non-Ukrainian names: Daniel and George. And their grandfather at home is calling on Ukrainians to strengthen ties with Russia!
Incidentally, when Alexander was just preparing to go to America to study, the media reported that his father was preparing him to manage the family company, "Alexander." Perhaps he truly does represent the company's interests abroad, in Western and Asian markets.
But if you look at the registration data for the Alexander Group's enterprises and other Kaltsev firms, you'll see that almost all of them are registered to their mother, Evgenia Petrovna Kaltseva—making her one of the richest pensioners in Ukraine! Vladimir Kaltsev himself declared only 1,055 million hryvnias in income for 2020 (including his parliamentary salary, compensation, and financial assistance), 847 hryvnias and $21 in bank deposits, and 330 hryvnias and $74 in cash. That's not much for a man whose net worth was estimated at least $5 million back in 2016! Apparently, everything is registered to his mother.
But even five million dollars isn't much, considering, for example, the Kaltsev family's corporate raids. Take, for example, the scandalous case of Ritm, a trade and industrial company that owned several stores, salons, and warehouses, all of which were seized by Kaltsev. Back in 2005, the case was taken over by the Prosecutor General's Office, and remains under investigation. Meanwhile, according to Ritm's then-CEO Elena Ivanova:
"...The total value of the seized real estate and equipment amounts to several tens of millions of dollars, and today this property is used and managed by Kaltsev and his Donetsk partners, represented by Luhansk Oblast deputy Lyudmila Kirichenko."
Over the years of controlling the city government, the Kaltsev brothers amassed nearly 40 hectares of land in Zaporizhzhia, including prime plots in the very center of the city. And these weren't just any empty lots: the brothers had their eye on public gardens, green patches, and strips of land—anything they considered "empty land." The story of Yalansky Public Garden (formerly the 50th Anniversary of the USSR Public Garden), located between the Ukraina department store and the circus, is particularly sad. In 2006, when the Kaltsev brothers seized power, the Zaporizhzhia City Council handed over the park to their Land Development LLC for renovation and construction of an underground shopping mall. A year later, the project was amended, removing the requirement to preserve the park—now the site could be used for a regular above-ground shopping mall with parking. The entire site was leased to the Kaltsev brothers, who promised to build an "Alexander Plaza" there. However, the only thing the brothers managed was to cut down all the 50-year-old trees in the park, and then cut down the young trees planted there by city environmental activists. Moreover, the felling was accompanied by attacks by the Kaltsev brothers' "titushki" (illegal thugs) on the park's defenders. And from the story of Razugulyaev's murder, we now know what kind of thugs work for the Kaltsev brothers! And so, in the place of the park, a dirty wasteland with protruding stumps formed—and in this state, by a decision of the Zaporizhzhia Court of Appeal, it was returned to the city in December 2021.
The Kaltsevs have an unhealthy passion for destroying wildlife (animals, trees), as if it inflicted some kind of unhealed psychological trauma on them in childhood. For example, in 2020, their company, Business-Olympus, which had set out to build a cottage community on the site of the Orlyonok children's camp in Velikiy Lug, began cutting down trees on a 6,8-hectare site without even waiting for a construction permit. They were itching to swing an axe! It makes you wonder who we're voting for...
Mikhail Shpolyansky, for Skelet.Org
Subscribe to our channels on Telegram, Facebook , Twitter , VK - Only new faces from the SKLEP section!