Vladislav Dreger
While Ukrainians are enjoying the temporary calm in Donbas, the Kremlin appears to have launched a new project to destabilize the country. This time, the ideologists of the "Russian World" are banking not on "little green men," but on the tried-and-true... Donetsk criminal underworld. The Russian mafia once helped Putin defeat the liberals in the struggle for absolute power. Now, it's possible that the Donetsk mafia will hand him Ukraine on a silver platter.
According to law enforcement sources, a new criminal group is gaining influence in Kyiv. It consists primarily of people from the Northern Donbas and Chechens. Currently, the organized crime group is actively recruiting militants and various titushki (bourgeois thugs). The group is led by a man little known in general circles, but very well-known in narrow criminal circles. former Donetsk businessman Vladislav Dreger.
Who is Vlad Dregger?
Early in his career, naturally in the turbulent 90s, the then-budding "businessman" Dreger became involved in a notorious Kramatorsk organized crime group with the almost Hollywood-sounding name "Precinct 17." This organization served as a security "roof" for the business of local crime boss Alexander Rybak. Legal cover for the organized crime group's "black" dealings was provided directly by Dreger through two entities—the association ZAO UkrLiga and OOO Donbass-Liga. According to Dreger himself, Precinct 17 gave him not only invaluable experience but also valuable connections. https://ura.dn.ua/15.09.2010/100585.html
The organized crime group was forced into hiding in 2001, immediately after the high-profile murder of local television journalist Igor Alexandrov. The death of the well-known journalist rocked the public and local authorities. Rybak was forced to go on the run, and Dreger quickly liquidated the UkrLiga, but he remained in the Donbas and even moved to Donetsk. According to investigators working on the Alexandrov case, representatives of the Donetsk community in Moscow strongly advised against bringing Dreger into the case.
Dreger's subsequent career was a series of outright lawlessness, which he miraculously got away with. Feeling completely unpunished between 2003 and 2009, Dreger effectively "squeezed out" a number of enterprises in the Donetsk region. These included the Zuyevo Electromechanical Plant, Elektrotrans, Krasnoarmeysk Machine-Building Plant, and others.
The signature scheme for extorting money from Dreger is extremely simple: the company's director is kept "on the hook" for a period of time, being tracked and collecting incriminating evidence. Then he's made an offer he can't refuse. Threats to his family, intimidation by armed militants, and staged accidents are used.
Using these "business methods," Dreger entered the Donbass auto transportation market in 2003. Initially, he forged shareholders' signatures to seize the Donetsk Regional Enterprise of Bus Stations (DOPAS). DOPAS's assets included more than 40 bus stations with a monthly passenger flow of over one million. Then, using the same corporate raiding methods, Dreger quickly monopolized the entire Donetsk region auto transportation market by squeezing out small and medium-sized companies. Since then, Donbass train stations have become a thriving criminal enterprise: drug trafficking, prostitution, and so on. Dreger stopped at nothing to make money.
Dreger's bus stations became the first bone of contention between the criminal businessman and the then Donetsk authorities. Wanting to restore order in Donetsk ahead of Euro 2012, the mayor's office politely asked the "businessman" to renovate the bus stations at least within the city limits. Dreger refused, as investing in development wasn't his strong point. City officials then decided to move the Putilovsky bus station outside the city limits. In response, Dreger built the Zapadny bus station, which didn't even have restrooms.
The profitability of this business approach is evidenced by the fact that by 2011, Dreger had entered the top 100 richest people in Ukraine and was even seriously considering a political career.
Sponsor Vitrenko and Gubarev
Dreger never hid who was behind him, and so he quietly made money off the Yanukovych-Akhmetov fiefdom. No one wanted to quarrel with the businessman's Moscow friends, but they didn't let him into their "sandbox" either.
Meanwhile, patronage had to be earned, and Dreger's first political project was the Natalia Vitrenko Bloc—an initially pro-Kremlin organization that made no secret of its primary goal: Ukraine's annexation by Russia. Natalia Kaetkina, secretary of the Donetsk regional committee of the PSPU, told URA-Inform.Donbass that Dreger had no interest in becoming a member of parliament. He simply deposited large sums of money into the party office to support anti-Ukrainian activities.
On the eve of the 2010 presidential elections, according to sources in the Party of Regions, the Moscow community strongly recommended accepting Dreger's team into the party. Besides him, many current DPR figures were expected to join the political organization's leadership, including the then-little-known Pavel Gubarev. The Party of Regions' curators at the time refused, fearing that a pro-Russian raider group would render the Party of Regions ungovernable. Yanukovych himself, it should be noted, had not yet decided whether to ally with the West or Russia.
As a result, Dreger bought into Serhiy Tihipko's "Strong Ukraine" party brand during the 2010 elections. All buses and bus stations in the Donetsk region were completely and exclusively adorned with Tihipko's advertising, and Dreger didn't sell advertising space to any other candidate. Tihipko lost, but our hero still leads the Donetsk branch of the "Strong Ukraine" party, apparently hoping that he'll still get a "cushy job" in the merger with the Party of Regions. Raisa Bogatyreva and Renat Kuzmin lobbied for this issue within the Party of Regions.Read more about it in the article Renat Kuzmin: The Family Business of Outlaw Prosecutors). But Yanukovych was adamant. Even with Moscow's protection, Dreger was too odious even for the Party of Regions.
The raider's greed was his undoing
In 2011, Dreger made a mistake that was strategic for his "career." To paraphrase a well-known saying, the raider's greed was his undoing. He was trying to "squeeze" a plot of land in central Donetsk that belonged to... Alexander Yanukovych. Why did he do it? Either out of stupidity, or overconfidence, and the hope of support from his Kremlin friends. It's not known for certain.
But it is known for certain that Yanukovych would not tolerate such lawlessness in his fiefdom and decided to pacify Dreger by reviving the case of the 2006 corporate raid on the Zuyevo Energy Mechanical Plant. In April 2011, Dreger was arrested and placed in a Kyiv pretrial detention center.
The story of the criminal businessman could have ended here if a revolution and then a war had not occurred in the country.
The first "republican" oligarch
In March 2014, unexpectedly, by decision of the Podolsk Court of Kyiv, Dreger was released from the Kyiv pretrial detention center. And not just released, but on the guarantee of members of parliament. Who were these compassionate do-gooders? As it turns out, the vouchers for the Donetsk raider were none other than members of parliament from the former "Strong Ukraine" party: Oleksandra Kuzhel, a defender of all disadvantaged entrepreneurs; Mykola Rudkovsky, a fan of top models; and Mykola Katerynchuk, who has worn numerous party labels. This would have been unsurprising, were it not for the name of the fourth member of parliament, who became the main initiator of Dreger's release. This was none other than Mykola Levchenko, known to everyone as a sponsor of Pavel Gubarev and other DPR apologists. The same Levchenko who held the post of secretary of the Donetsk city council and, since 2004, has repeatedly called for Donbass to secede from Ukraine.
Why did he need this? Obviously, financial interest. And a serious one. Not so much in Ukraine, but in the DPR. After all, before his imprisonment, Drägger transferred the corporate rights to all his bus stations, registered under the companies "Avtovokzaly Donbassa" LLC, "Donetsk Avtovokzaly" LLC, and "SAB" LLC, to his man, Nikolai Chumachenko, who oversaw the operation during the Donbas's main raider's imprisonment.
Donbas bus stations have always generated considerable profits, which never actually made it into the budget, ending up right in Dregger's pockets. And during the war, the business's capitalization increased exponentially. While Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were dying under the attacks of militants, Dregger sharply increased the cost of intercity travel, forcing his fellow countrymen to pay double or even triple the price for the opportunity to leave the conflict zone.
Naturally, such a profitable business cannot exist without protection—both from the DPR and from prosecutors and SBU officials in Ukraine.
Immediately after his release, Dreger established contact with the DPR leaders, hoping to maintain control of bus stations in the occupied territory. He succeeded with the help of Alexander Khodakovsky, the leader of the Vostok Battalion. It is the Vostok Battalion's fighters who guard all the "republic's" bus stations, as well as the Zuevsky Electromechanical Plant and the Donetsk Coke and Chemical Equipment, which belong to Dreger.
According to information from carriers currently operating in Donetsk, Dreger's representatives come to the management of the Southern Bus Station twice a week to collect cash, and the funds are divided between Dreger and representatives of the DPR.
Dreger himself is also a frequent visitor to Donetsk. Despite being released on bail, Vladislav Olegovich has crossed the Ukrainian border at least 16 times this year, 13 of which were to Moscow. According to law enforcement sources, Dreger doesn't stay in Moscow for long and immediately travels to the "people's republics."
Among DPR officials, Dreger is already informally referred to as "the republic's first oligarch." Incidentally, Dreger's personal security detail consists entirely of Chechens, and he himself arrives in an armored BMW.
Dreger's march on Kyiv
In May 2015, Dreger moved to Kyiv. In the Ukrainian capital, he regularly holds meetings with shady criminal elements and notorious "regionals." According to sources, Dreger boasts of patrons "at the top" who give him the green light to reorganize businesses. He claims he's already prepared to "enter" a number of properties, including several large shopping centers. He insists there won't be any problems with this. Using patriotism and Maidan slogans as a cover, it's now possible to quietly seize whatever's lying around.
Compared to the growing Donetsk raider Dreger, "Marshal Grechka" and Ukraine's number one raider, Gennady Korban, might seem like a simple, playful kid with a slingshot. Dreger has already opened several private security companies in Kyiv, thereby legitimizing around 300 of his own militants. Given Dreger's previous "work experience," we risk seeing the "best" examples of the outright gangster mayhem of the 1990s in Kyiv in the near future.
Given everything happening in the country, nothing should be surprising anymore. But still, how can our vigilant SBU and the prosecutor's office, who every other day announce the capture of all sorts of "enemies of the people"—whether they're writing comments on social media or refusing to join the army—staunchly ignore a pro-Kremlin raider who's already firmly established himself in Kyiv and is preparing to move his criminal empire here?
Sergey Ilyev, for ORD
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