Vitaliy Kovalchuk: Will Poroshenko bankrupt Bankova's "online" falsifier? Part 1
Warnings that the 2019 presidential elections would be the dirtiest and most scandalous in Ukraine's history have long been made. This was already evident when the names of the candidates' campaign managers were announced, and Petro Poroshenko was once again being steered toward a "re-election" by Vitaliy Kovalchuk, his first deputy head of the Administration. This little-known and inconspicuous official earned his extremely negative reputation during the previous elections, and even earlier, when, before entering big politics, he was busy bankrupting state-owned enterprises for corporate raiders and oligarchs.
And this reputation was immediately confirmed. Hardly had the official election campaign begun when evidence of planned falsifications began to emerge—without which, obviously, Poroshenko's campaign team couldn't have hoped for victory. One of Vitaliy Kovalchuk's know-how was a cunning system of bribing voters.
Komsomol mafia
Vitaly Anatolyevich Kovalchuk was born on May 23, 1969, in Kyiv. He never spoke about his family, and Kovalchuk is generally a reserved and reserved person, so his rapid rise in the 90s remained a mystery to many. Indeed, to land a privileged job, become a trusted confidant of one prominent figure, and marry the daughter of another, you had to be either the son of difficult parents or a truly extraordinary individual. Well, Vitaly Kovalchuk is precisely that! But his uniqueness lies not in his looks or his intellect, but in his ability to quickly navigate and adapt, diligently serving his "masters"—and not just for a paycheck, of course.
In 1986, Vitaly Kovalchuk graduated from Irpin Secondary School No. 6. Why he graduated from Irpin and not Kyiv remains unclear – perhaps Kovalchuk was fibbing a bit when he claimed Kyiv was his birthplace. That same year, he enrolled in Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, choosing the law faculty. But after his first year, in the summer of 1987, Vitaly Kovalchuk was drafted into the army and sent to a construction battalion. It's unlikely that such a fate would have befallen him had he had influential parents. But every cloud has a silver lining, as it was thanks to the construction battalion that Vitaly Kovalchuk became who he is today.
Having joined the construction battalion, Kovalchuk, far from being depressed, quickly adapted: he completed training, received a construction specialty and shoulder straps, and, according to some sources, became the company's Komsomol organizer. So, he returned home from the army not a drunken "demobilized" soldier, but a young careerist full of enthusiasm and new plans. Having been reinstated at university, Kovalchuk continued what he had begun in the construction battalion: he followed the Komsomol line and joined a student construction brigade, but not as a rank-and-file plasterer. Although he himself will not admit it, several Skelet.Org sources familiar with Kovalchuk claim that at university he rose to the rank of one of the construction brigade leaders and had personal access to the city, regional, and even the Central Committee of the Komsomol, where he met important people who would shape his future career.
Petr Miroshnikov
One such person was Pyotr Miroshnikov, head of a sector at the Republican Headquarters of Student Brigades. From 1989 to 1991, Miroshnikov commuted between Kyiv and Moscow. Firstly, he managed the Kyiv branch of the Soviet Inkombank, whose head office was located in Moscow. Secondly, Miroshnikov was a correspondence student at the Moscow Financial Institute (or rather, was listed as a student), and thirdly, he had numerous connections in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (VLKSM) and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), as well as in the Soviet secret services. This last part seems like a journalistic invention, but it's not quite that simple! The fact is, Miroshnikov was studying international relations economics by correspondence, and not just for fun, but in preparation for a career in foreign trade, within large joint ventures created under the protection of the KGB and GRU (Vladimir Putin even started out with such a joint venture). But in August 1991, Miroshnikov's plans, to put it mildly, had to be seriously adjusted. He remained in Kyiv (though he maintained ties with Moscow), continuing to manage the Inkombank branch, which in 91 was re-registered as the now strictly Ukrainian Joint-Stock Commercial Bank INKO. According to numerous sources, it was INKO that held the "cash fund of the Central Committee of the LKSMU," managed by its First Secretary, Anatoly Matvienko.
It's unknown how Kovalchuk, a student, earned his living in 1992. Officially, it wasn't until 1993 that he landed his first job, as a legal consultant at INKO Bank, where Miroshnikov immediately hired him. However, according to unconfirmed reports, Kovalchuk worked part-time at the bank even before graduating. Kovalchuk quickly rose to the position of head of INKO's legal department.
A group of rather interesting characters formed around INKO at the time. Besides Miroshnikov and Kovalchuk, there were future oligarchs Fedor Shpyg and Oleksandr Derkach , who were later appointed to head the new Aval Bank (INKO's founder), future MP Roman Nefed, and former First Secretary of the Kherson Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mykola Rozhko.
INKO existed until 1996, opening 60 branches across Ukraine and advertising on television. However, it went down in history as the bank used to launder Anatoly Matviyenko's "alcohol money," as well as a so-called "gray credit office." What is this? We obtain "white loans" from banks legally, using collateral or obligations. "Black loans" can be obtained from criminal organizations—unofficially, without collateral, but at exorbitant interest rates that require payment with all property or even life (a type of "black cash office" is the so-called "quick money," which lends money "until payday"). If a bank legally and officially issues a loan, but knows in advance that the borrower is unlikely to repay it, such a loan is called problematic or "gray." Typically, such loans are issued either to their own companies, when they begin to embezzle funds from the bank (this is the main cause of all banking crises in Ukraine), or to force the borrower into debt, bankrupting them, and seizing their assets. These "gray" loans were used to spread the word, and then many Ukrainian enterprises were "privatized"! Entire schemes were created, in which everyone played a role, and INKO Bank was one of them.
Someone generously poured money into the bank, which was then lent out to Ukrainian enterprises that lacked the funds to purchase raw materials or pay wages. Again and again, until the debts became critical. The task of INKO's legal department—that is, Kovalchuk's—was to "correctly" formalize these debts so that one fine day the enterprise would be forced into bankruptcy and "swallowed." And this wasn't some kind of "gangster raid"; these were completely legitimate demands of a creditor on a borrower—which is why this scheme was so widespread. INKO then sold or transferred most of these debt obligations to third parties—these were the firms of those who commissioned INKO to drive one or another enterprise of interest into debt. In 1996, with the start of large-scale privatization, this debt pyramid suddenly collapsed: INKO Bank went bankrupt, and with its collapse, all traces of the credit fraud were cleared up. Moreover, the head of the legal department of the bank, Kovalchuk, directly coordinated this deliberate collapse of INKO.
Kovalchuk immediately assumed the position of deputy director of the Ukrainian-Cypriot joint venture Bipe Co., Ltd., which supplied raw materials to the Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works (AMK). It appears that Bipe Co. was one of the companies involved in the scheme to deliberately bankrupt enterprises. During the six months that Kovalchuk served as deputy director, he managed to ruin AMK and prepare it for privatization. The enterprise soon came under the joint control of Viktor Pinchuk's Interpipe corporation , whose interests were represented by Bipe Co., and the Industrial Union of Donbass, which at the time was jointly owned by Vitaly Gaiduk , Sergey Taruta , and Rinat Akhmetov.
Later, lawsuits were filed regarding this deliberate bankruptcy , and statements were written to President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko, but it was all in vain - the embezzlement had already taken place.
Marriages of convenience
In the second half of the 90s, having already established himself firmly on his feet, Vitaliy Kovalchuk married. His wife was Olena Kuratchenko (whose name changed to Kovalchuk after marriage), one of the daughters of the influential official Volodymyr Kuratchenko. From December 1996, he served as Deputy Minister of Mechanical Engineering, Military-Industrial Complex, and Conversion of Ukraine (there were allegations of his involvement in embezzlement of military resources and arms trafficking). In 1998, Kuchma appointed him head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration. In 1999, he was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister for six months, then briefly returned to the governor's chair.
Vladimir Kuratchenko
They lived in this marriage, which was very beneficial for Kovalchuk, for 23 years: Elena gave birth to sons Vladimir and Matvey and a daughter, Polina. Elena Kovalchuk's own business is the Kyiv clinic "Victoria," but after becoming a member of parliament and then deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Vitaly Kovalchuk transferred almost all of his property—companies, real estate, cars, valuables, and deposits—to his wife, transforming him into a modest official living on his salary alone. However, as Skelet.Org sources reported , Kovalchuk simply hid a significant portion of his capital in the form of offshore companies.
Petr and Elena Kovalchuk
Elena Kovalchuk with her children
It soon became clear why Vitaliy Kovalchuk was in such a hurry. His new chosen one was Natalia Agafonova, a Verkhovna Rada deputy elected on the Poroshenko Bloc list (No. 44). She is said to be one of the best friends of Yulia Levochkina , their university classmate, a rather spoiled individual with a love of expensive brands.
Natalia Agafonova (now Kovalchuk)
But apparently, Vitaly Kovalchuk figured out that such love would pay off handsomely. And so, on January 11, 2019, they married (quietly, almost secretly), and soon Natalya Agafonova also became a Kovalchuk.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Vitaliy Kovalchuk: Will Poroshenko's "network" falsifier bankrupt Bankova? PART 2
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