After the President called early parliamentary elections, Yanukovych's remaining "overseers" in the regions saw them as a chance to jump on the bandwagon of the rapidly departing train of power.
In the fight for smuggling
One such platform was the controversial electoral district No. 140 in the Odesa region. After the Central Election Commission was forced to drastically reshuffle the local district committee during the vote count, an independent candidate celebrated victory there. Vasily GulyaevMany greeted this result with enthusiasm—they said a new person had been elected to parliament, a successful village council head unaffiliated with any political party.
However, if you look more closely at Vasily Alexandrovich's personality, the dark contours of the "Family" become clearly visible behind the idyllic image of an effective local leader. But first things first.
Under the absconding president, the task of "watching" the Odessa region was entrusted to Yuriy Ivanyushchenko's protégé To Ivan Ivanovich AvramovWith the help of former Governor Eduard Matviychuk, Ivan Ivanovich quickly gained control of the smuggling flows entering the country through the Odessa, Illichivsk, and Yuzhny ports. To this end, he created a number of "fashionable" brokerage firms that, for a fee, ensured the unimpeded passage of any cargo through customs. Furthermore, Mr. Avramov was involved in several corporate raiding scandals in the region, the most high-profile of which was the takeover of the 7th Kilometer market.
After Viktor Yanukovych fled, the smuggling "business" began to slip from Ivan Ivanovich's grasp. Avramov became seriously concerned with promoting people capable of lobbying his interests in Kyiv.
One such person is former Odesa Oblast Governor Eduard Matviychuk. He was initially slated to be nominated as a candidate in the 140th electoral district. However, after Matviychuk launched a "preparatory barrage"—placing his portrait on billboards en masse and distributing "gifts" to voters—it became clear that residents of Belyaevka, Illichivsk, and Ovidiopol would not support a candidate associated with the previous government. Ultimately, Matviychuk was "transferred" to one of the Odesa districts, and Ivan Avramov quickly found a replacement for the controversial former governor.
"New Face"
Vasily Gulyaev became such a replacement. As a sign of "good intentions," even before the start of the election campaign, he donated 30 hectares of land to Avramov near a former military base. This land served as "security" for the funds Avramov allocated for Vasily Alexandrovich's election campaign. In addition to financial resources, Ivan Ivanovich also provided Gulyaev with personnel and, most importantly, administrative support.
In particular, Vasyl Gulyaev's nomination was supported by the Council of Village and Settlement Council Chairmen of the Ovidiopol District—an organization actively "fed" by Mr. Avramov during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency. This was an attempt to deflect suspicions of Gulyaev's ties to the former government by claiming that his nomination was initiated by local government bodies. To ensure voters wouldn't even consider Vasyl Gulyaev's ties to the "Family," a powerful counter-propaganda campaign was launched in the district, shaping his image as a "former" of one of Gulyaev's competitors, David Zhvania. It must be said, this ploy worked perfectly—David Zhvania, who left the Party of Regions last fall, only finished third in the district, receiving three times fewer votes than the actual "Family" representative.
However, the result still needed to be "defended." After all, David Zhvania, representing the Petro Poroshenko Bloc in these elections, was unwilling to accept the victory of a representative of the Yanukovych clan. Avramov dispatched "trusted people" to defend Gulyaev's victory. For example, in one of the videos filmed during a picket of the district committee in Belyaevka, a certain Vladimir Pozonyuk and Oleh Neneka were caught on camera. The former handled customs clearance for Avramov's brokerage firms, while the latter was the nominal director of several such firms. At the ninth and tenth minutes of the video below, Pozonyuk and Neneka openly state that they came to the district committee to defend Gulyaev's interests. However, only Neneka responded to the request to identify himself. And even he only gave his first name, reasonably deciding that his last name would shed too much light on the true identity of Vasyl Gulyaev's candidacy.
A candidate from the ground up
How did it happen that the head of a village council with a population of only about three thousand was elevated to positions of power that were off-limits to the vast majority of his colleagues? The answer can be summed up in one word: "land." It's no secret that in the coastal districts of the Odessa region, the price of one hundred square meters of land can reach $5. When Vasily Gulyayev became head of the Molodezhnensky village council, he had hundreds of hectares of such land at his disposal. It was this land that he began selling.
Experts estimate that the market value of the land sold by Gulyaev over eight years is hundreds of millions of dollars. This business proved so profitable that Gulyaev was able not only to ensure stable revenue streams through the shadowy "Family" vertical, enrich himself personally, but also to allocate funds for the Youth Fund. Admittedly, the village was transformed under Gulyaev—roads were repaired, and street lighting was installed. However, experts estimate that the cost of these works amounted to barely a tenth of the actual value of the land Gulyaev sold to private enterprises and individuals. However, the average person is far removed from these calculations—they only see what they are shown. And what they are shown is an attractive façade of streetlights and smooth asphalt. Asphalt, embedded in kickbacks, bribes, scams, and outright theft—worth hundreds of millions of dollars in budget funds.
However, as we know, there are no bottomless pits. Molodezhny's "land resource," which had elevated Gulyaev to the highest echelons under Viktor Yanukovych, is inexorably running out. Therefore, Vasyl Oleksandrovich has found himself a new position in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. And to make this position as lucrative as possible, he has signed on to represent the interests of Ivan Ivanovich Avramov in parliament—the man under whose control he carried out his land scams.
Oleg Kunin, for "ORD"
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