Volodymyr Lytvyn: Does Ukraine need a professional Judas?

Volodymyr Lytvyn: Does Ukraine need a professional Judas?

Why would a man who twice led the Verkhovna Rada remain unclaimed and virtually forgotten by his voters today? Because Volodymyr Lytvyn became a symbol of Ukrainian political corruption even under Kuchma. He cheated, betrayed, and sold out so often that now even amid the growing government crisis, his services are unwelcome—especially since he always demanded an exorbitant price for them! Nevertheless, Lytvyn patiently awaits the moment when Ukraine might need him again. But why?

Vladimir Litvin. The Marriage of a "Sexbot"

Vladimir Mykhailovych Lytvyn was born on April 28, 1956, in the village of Sloboda-Romanivska, Novohrad-Volynskyi district, Zhytomyr region. His parents, Mykhailo Klimovich Lytvyn (born 1930) and Olga Andreyevna Lytvyn (born 1929), were ordinary, simple collective farmers who could offer nothing but love and care to their three sons: Vladimir, Mykola (born 1961), and Petro (born 1967). The brothers had no prospects on their collective farm, so, like many of their peers, they one by one left the village for the big world. The eldest, Vladimir, was the first to leave the nest in 1973, enrolling in the history department of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv after high school.

The Litvins' ancestral home

An interesting fact: while Vladimir Litvin's peers were being pulled out of university after their first and second years to fulfill their honorable duty as defenders of the socialist fatherland, he himself never served in the army, even after graduating from KSU – although he never mentioned having a "white ticket." But Litvin couldn't have had one in principle, since those with a "white ticket" were not awarded the rank of KGB officer. How did he manage this? There's one explanation: Vladimir Litvin fell under a program to recruit new KGB personnel, which in Soviet times was sought out in higher education institutions and Komsomol committees. The first stage of this program was the recruitment of "secret agents": unlike "snitches," they cooperated with the KGB voluntarily, and their work was not limited to informing on their comrades. Typically, aspiring "secret agents" were given special assignments, the completion of which was used to evaluate their abilities and conduct a screening process: the efficient and diligent were recommended for recruitment, the mediocre were retained as "secret agents" for life, and the clueless or conscientious were demoted to rank-and-file "snitches." Such assignments could include creating one's own network of informants, or "deep infiltration" into a certain circle or group, or even provocations and "setups"—for example, planting samizdat on someone.

Volodymyr Lytvyn: Does Ukraine need a professional Judas?

What exactly Vladimir Litvin's assignment was, of course, remained a secret, although the State Security Service had plenty of work to do at the KGU.

Firstly, the university was one of the foundries of Soviet leadership, ideological, and diplomatic personnel—whose integrity had to be closely monitored. Secondly, despite strict KGB surveillance, the university was a center of freethinking and "sedition," and it was here that a new wave of Ukrainian nationalist movements emerged in the late 80s. That this didn't happen in the late 70s or early 80s was partly thanks to the humble "secret agent" Litvin. However, in an attempt to explain his KGB past, he himself, in 2008, told a tall tale about how, during his student years, he merely worked as a part-time... guard at a KGB-affiliated kindergarten. What a funny story!

Fairy tales aside, judging by the fact that Vladimir Litvin wasn't drafted into the Soviet Army at 18 or 19, his active collaboration with the State Security Service began around that time. He was diligent enough to be excused from conscription in the Border Troops or as a communications officer, which could well have suited a much-needed KGB cadre. Yet Litvin remained a secret agent for over ten years, only achieving the rank of lieutenant in the State Security Service in 1986 – after his successful marriage and entry into the Communist Party elite of the Ukrainian SSR. Could it be that as a secret agent he turned out to be a mediocre performer? Perhaps so, but another theory exists: that Litvin's marriage was his main mission.

According to his dorm roommate, Volodymyr Bondarenko (a member of parliament and Klitschko's successor as head of the Kyiv City State Administration), Lytvyn met his future wife during his senior year. Another source claims it happened somewhat later, when Lytvyn, who graduated with honors in 1978, stayed on as a senior methodologist in the academic department and then as an assistant to the rector. This job also allowed him to keep his dorm room—and it was there, at a birthday party for a graduate student, that he met Tatyana Panikarskaya, a student at the Institute of Light Industry. She was the daughter of Kostiantyn Panikarsky, the first secretary of the Pechersk District Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, who was being promoted to the position of first secretary of the Lenin District Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and became a member of the Central Committee.

Rumors circulated that the KGB had allegedly decided to assign a man to Panikarsky and tasked Litvin with courting Tatyana. Other sources claimed that Litvin had seized on Tatyana without any specific assignment, seeing her as his chance to rise in society. Considering that acquaintances from his youth described Vladimir Litvin as a pathologically greedy man, seizing on the slightest opportunity to "earn a little extra money," "shop for something," or get ahead, this would not be surprising.

Konstantin Panikarsky with his daughter Tatyana Litvin

The groom looked ridiculous: he spent all his money on a men's mink coat (the chic of the time, even cooler than a sheepskin coat) and wore it on dates, afraid to leave the expensive item in the coat closet at the cinema or café. And by Litvin's own admission, he asked Panikarsky for his daughter's hand in marriage... in writing. Only then did he propose. It's hard to say why the Panikarskys liked the mink-coated "sexot" from the collective farm, but they accepted him into their family. Thus, Vladimir Litvin became a "primak," receiving a beautiful wife, an apartment in Kyiv, and the start of his career.

By 1980, 24-year-old Volodymyr Lytvyn became a senior lecturer in the history department at Kyiv State University. Over the next six years, his daughter, Elena, was born in 1982, he defended his PhD dissertation (1984) on "The Activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine to Improve the Training of Social Sciences Teachers," and arranged for his brother, Mykola, to attend the Donetsk Higher Military-Political School of Engineering Troops. After graduation, Mykola had a distinguished career as a political officer (company, battalion, regiment, and brigade). And in 1986, with the help of his father-in-law and his handlers in the State Security Service, Lytvyn leapt to the head of a department in the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Education of the Ukrainian SSR. Simultaneously, Lytvyn was promoted from a rank-and-file secret agent to the rank of senior lieutenant in the KGB, thus holding a high position while still in uniform. However, something happened then that neither Litvin himself nor his acquaintances ever spoke about: his career in the KGB ended. According to one version, Litvin sensed the winds of change and decided to prudently jump ship—something he would do repeatedly later. And in 1989, immediately after the birth of his son Ivan, Vladimir Litvin transferred to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine: first as a simple lecturer, then as a consultant and assistant to the Secretary of the Central Committee. New prospects opened up for him, but they were dashed by the events of 1991.

The Watchman and the Brothers

It was a true downfall: while most former Soviet "apparatchiks" were actively settling into positions of power and business, Volodymyr Lytvyn was only able to return to his native Kyiv State University as a simple lecturer, where salaries were dwindling due to the onset of inflation. According to Lytvyn's official biography, at the time, he was moonlighting as a night watchman at the "Ukraine" agricultural firm, where he was placed by an old acquaintance, Adam Martynyuk (former first secretary of the Lviv City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine), who also worked there as head of security. Lytvyn's stories about his work as a simple watchman are hard to believe, but nothing else is known about his activities in the early 90s. Why neither his father-in-law nor his personal connections helped Lytvyn can only be guessed at: for some reason, no one in Kyiv's elite wanted to associate with him, perhaps knowing of his past work in the KGB.

Everything changed in 1993, when three important events occurred in Vladimir Litvin's life. First, he was promoted to major—now in the SBU, and already in the reserves. Why the night watchman was promoted from KGB senior lieutenant straight to SBU major, and then sent to the reserves, remains unknown. However, there is information that in the early 90s, Vladimir Litvin collaborated with SBU General Yuriy Gavrilov, a trusted confidant of then-SBU head Yevhen Marchuk. What's no less interesting is that from 1965 to 77, Marchuk worked as an operative in the Fifth Department of the KGB, which dealt with ideological work and the identification of dissidents. This means he could well have had contacts with the aspiring "secret agent," Volodya Litvin.

Secondly, his brother, Nikolai Litvin, who had just graduated from the Higher Military-Political Academy in Moscow, suddenly wanted to return to Ukraine and serve his homeland, abandoning his career in the Russian army. It's worth emphasizing here that the Soviet and post-Soviet political officer was always a secret agent for the State Security Service, and sometimes even served as a special agent. Therefore, although Nikolai Litvin's connection to the KGB, and then the FSK (later the FSB), was never mentioned, it existed by default. At the same time, a third brother, Petro Litvin, who graduated from a tank academy in 1990, was transferred from the Far East to the Carpathian Military District.

And thirdly, there was the historic meeting between Volodymyr Lytvyn and Leonid Kuchma, which would once again change our hero's life. And this, too, was not without the involvement of Lytvyn's KGB-SBU "handlers": General Gavrilov brought him into close contact with Oleksandr Razumkov (although Razumkov had also studied at Kyiv State University from 1977-82, but in the Faculty of International Relations; they were unfamiliar with Lytvyn). Razumkov, who had worked in the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Committee of the LKSMU from 1982-90 and knew all the "Dnipropetrovsk guys" well, introduced him to Kuchma as a smart and reliable man. It must be assumed that Lytvyn tried to please Kuchma as much as he had his future wife, Tatyana.

Volodymyr Lytvyn and Leonid Kuchma

However, Razumkov was mistaken about Lytvyn's "reliability," as he often served two or three "masters" simultaneously—a common practice for the former secret agent. With Leonid Kuchma's election as president in 1994, Razumkov became his first aide, bringing Yuriy Gavrilov with him to the presidential administration as his aide for national security, and Volodymyr Lytvyn, making him his aide for domestic policy. Razumkov and Gavrilov thought they could rely on the man he had elevated to power and who owed him gratitude. But less than a year later, Lytvyn betrayed them.

First, an internal conflict erupted within the Administration over the creation of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Its lobbyists, Razumkov and Gavrilov, encountered resistance from SBU First Deputy Leonid Derkach and Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko. The head of the Administration sided with the latter. Dmitry Tabachnik, which sparked a serious conflict between him and Razumkov. And suddenly, Volodymyr Lytvyn defected to Tabachnyk's side. The betrayal was overt: Lytvyn left his position under Razumkov and became Tabachnyk's deputy. And when Razumkov was forced out of the Administration in December 1995, Lytvyn soon took his place.

Dmitry Tabachnik

This story had a sequel: General Gavrilov, who had left the Administration in the fall of 1995, threatened to take revenge on "Judas" Lytvyn and leak information about his "sex-terrorism," specifically about whom he had betrayed and framed to the KGB while still a student at Kyiv State University. Gavrilov relied on Marchuk, who at the time was Ukraine's Prime Minister. Agitated, Lytvyn sought protection from his boss, and Tabachnyk secured Gavrilov's silence, specifically by threatening to pursue the case of Gavrilov and Marchuk's oil trade fraud in retaliation. However, a year later, Tabachnyk himself was forced out, after which the Administration underwent several years of personnel changes, with only Volodymyr Lytvyn gaining a permanent foothold. From 1996, he served as the president's first aide, and, unlike his predecessor, Razumkov, he was completely indifferent to state affairs, focusing on creating a vast presidential entourage: protocol services, press secretaries, aides, event organizers, schedulers, and so on. Upon becoming head of the Presidential Administration in 1999, he merely continued and expanded this policy. It was said that it was largely thanks to Lytvyn that Kuchma abandoned all reforms (except privatization) and became a passive courtier.

Leonid Kuchma and Volodymyr Lytvyn

At the same time, Lytvyn didn't forget about himself or his family. In 1997, Volodymyr Lytvyn, along with Ihor Bakai (then a freelance presidential adviser and member of parliament), carried out a scam, misappropriating and transferring 88 patents to Novye Mikrotekhnologii LLC, which they then sold to state-owned companies (including Naftogaz) for 188 million hryvnias (approximately $100 million). Information about this was published in 2002 by Member of Parliament Hryhoriy Omelchenko, who also provided documents on Lytvyn's lobbying efforts with the head of the State Tax Administration. Nikolai Azarov interests of the company "TNK-Ukraine" and the transfer of foreign currency funds of JSC "TNK-Ukraine Invest" through the offshore structure "Asmis-company S.A." However, at the time, the Prosecutor General's Office declared Omelchenko's evidence falsified.

The scandal surrounding Vladimir Lytvyn's status as a "combatant" was quite revealing, demonstrating his cynical lack of scruples and petty greed. On January 9-10, 2001, Lytvyn, as part of a Ukrainian delegation, visited a base housing the Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent in Yugoslavia. The inspection was typical: they arrived, addressed the troops, partied at a banquet, and then went home in the morning. But then many members of the delegation began to rig their status as "combatants," claiming the law allowed it (after all, they had been in the conflict zone). Lytvyn, too, wanted this status, and his motives were shockingly self-serving: he simply wanted to take advantage of the benefits that came with it!

But Lytvyn's greed didn't stop at benefits. In 1996, he secured early promotion to lieutenant colonel of the SBU reserve, and in 1999, to colonel. Why did he need these now-useless ranks? According to people close to Lytvyn, he wanted to secure an early and increased pension!

With Lytvyn's rise to power, his brothers' lineage rose sharply. Mykola Lytvyn, abandoning the unpromising path of political officer, became deputy and then chief of staff of the Internal Troops of Ukraine in 1996, facilitating their transformation into a court force protecting the government from popular uprisings. In 2001, Mykola Lytvyn became head of the Border Troops of Ukraine (since 2003, the Border Service of Ukraine), marking the beginning of their disintegration and transformation into the most corrupt civil service. The youngest brother, Petro Lytvyn, rose from battalion commander to commander of a mechanized brigade between 1996 and 2003.

Vladimir Litvin. Voice on tape

The biggest scandal in Vladimir Litvin's life was the "cassette" scandal, in which he was implicated as one of the masterminds behind the murder of Georgiy Gongadze: at least one of the voices on the "Melnichenko tapes" allegedly belonged to him. It was said that Litvin's initial reaction to the publication of the tapes was shock and fear, although even afterward, his awkward defense indicated severe nervous stress. No one had ever seen Vladimir Litvin like this. According to Vladimir Tsvil (Oleksandr Moroz's assistant), Litvin literally panicked.

Many perceived this as indirect evidence of Lytvyn's involvement in Gongadze's disappearance, but the essence of the scandal boiled down to the stifling of freedom of speech in Ukraine. Meanwhile, there was another version of this tragedy, one in which Lytvyn played a far greater role.

The fact is that since 1995 he has been an Interfax journalist Alena Pritula She worked in the Presidential Administration, covering his activities in the media—and from 1997 onward, her work was entirely supervised by Volodymyr Lytvyn. And so, as many sources reported, a certain "love affair" developed between them, which resulted in Prytula receiving many honors (including the title of Honored Journalist), as well as an unspoken special status in Ukrainian journalism, which was then still very timid and under pressure from censors, and the omnipotence of officials. However, according to Prytula herself, Skelet.OrgThe young journalist Georgy Gongadze, the third member of this classic triangle, was also in the "amours." But in 2000, she quit her job in the Administration and decided to work with Gongadze on the Ukrainska Pravda project. To this end, they traveled to the United States and complained about the suppression of freedom of speech in Ukraine—apparently soliciting grants and political protection. This allegedly aroused in Lytvyn a heightened sense of jealousy and a desire for revenge: and then, through people close to Kuchma, he presented Gongadze to him as a dangerous "chatterbox" whose mouth needed to be "cut short," along with his head. Meanwhile, Prytula herself allegedly learned of Gongadze's murder (from Lytvyn) within the first few hours.

Another interesting fact: although Ukrainska Pravda uses the slogan “Founded by Georgiy Gongadze in 2000,” this is actually just a marketing ploy.

The fact is that UP was founded (registered) twice: first in 2000, with the composition of its founders then remaining unknown, and re-registered in 2001, as a result of which its sole founder is only Alena Prytula (incidentally, the main "sponsor" of the apartment of her former employee, and now truth-telling MP Sergei Leshchenko.

In short, although the "amorous" theory logically explained why only Georgy Gongazde, who played a secondary role (after Prytula) in the "Ukrainska Pravda" project, was killed and kidnapped, it was understandably not pursued. After all, it was unfavorable even for the instigators of the "tape scandal," who were banking on the political narrative of Gongadze's murder. Nevertheless, Volodymyr Lytvyn remained the main figure in both versions of the "conspiracy."

Lithuanians don't drown!

But Volodymyr Lytvyn needn't have worried: of all those involved in the "tape scandal," he suffered the least. Leonid Kuchma lost his political standing, former minister Kravchenko mysteriously shot himself, General Pukach spent a long time on the run—and then, after being arrested, testified against Lytvyn. But he continued to hold his own: all the accusations merely whistled at his temples, while Lytvyn's approval ratings slowly rose, as if voters were losing their memory. In 2002, he topped the electoral list of the pro-presidential bloc "For a United Ukraine," receiving 11,77% of the vote. Even taking into account administrative resources, this was a significant loss for a politician who had just been accused of orchestrating the murder of a renowned journalist who had made headlines around the world. Nevertheless, Lytvyn first led a faction, then the pro-presidential majority, and was finally elected Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada—a position he successfully held through the political turmoil of 2004-2005. He was aided in this by the tried-and-true principle of "a gentle calf sucks two mothers."

Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn

Litvin began preparing for a change of “master” in the country already in the spring of 2004, when he pushed through the adoption of political reform initiated by his successor as head of the presidential Administration. Viktor Medvedchuk... Subsequently Nestor Shufrich He claimed that the vote on political reform on April 5, 2004, was defeated, to the great delight of the opposition, by six deputies who were "Lytvyn's men." Whether he was later forced to explain himself to Leonid Kuchma, or whether it was an orchestrated performance, remains unknown – but Lytvyn remained the speaker of the pro-presidential majority. And with the onset of the 2004 Maidan, when this majority began to crumble, Lytvyn became a political beacon and coordinator for the deputies who decided to take a neutral stand between the losing Yanukovych and the winning Yushchenko.

Lytvyn's role in Yushchenko's victory was crucial: he effectively blocked all the "anti-Maidan" initiatives of the "white-blue" majority and contributed to its collapse. He then acted as a negotiator between the "orange" factions and those deputies of the former majority who did not want to quarrel with the new political leader. Lytvyn's most decisive step was organizing the successful "package" vote in December 2004: Viktor Yushchenko received the Rada's consent to hold a "third round" of elections in exchange for political reform. But Volodymyr Lytvyn received the most perks: the Hero of Ukraine medal, a guarantee that he would remain speaker until the end of the parliamentary term, and that his brother, Mykola, would continue to head the Border Service. The younger brother also received a small gift: in February 2005, Petro Lytvyn was promoted to deputy corps commander and soon received his first general rank.

It's worth noting that, intoxicated by the omnipotence of his high-ranking brothers, Petro Litvin often behaved like an overgrown tycoon. For example, on October 27, 2007, his Hyundai was stopped by traffic police on a highway in the Mykolaiv region for speeding 1.5 times. General Litvin exited the car, yelled obscenities at the inspectors, ordered his driver to write down their badge numbers, and an hour and a half later, both traffic cops were fired on the personal orders of Major General Mykola Pikhtin, head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Mykolaiv region.

The 2006 parliamentary elections were a failure for Lytvyn. Back in 2004, he had "bought" the Agrarian Party of Ukraine, renamed it the People's Party for the 2006 elections, and incorporated it into the "WE" bloc, which sold seats to any "strong business executive" who wanted to run. Enormous amounts of money were spent on advertising, and Volodymyr Lytvyn appeared on every television talk show almost daily, becoming the first star of Ukrainian television. But the efforts and expenditures were in vain: the bloc garnered only 2,77% of the vote. This was primarily attributed to the fact that Lytvyn had become quite tiresome to Ukrainians, many of whom had not forgotten either his long-standing closeness to Kuchma or his betrayal of Yanukovych. Therefore, Lytvyn spent the next year and a half as head of the Department of Modern Ukrainian History at Kyiv State University (now National University), specifically adjusting history to Yushchenko's wishes and regularly appearing on "Freedom of Speech" as a peacemaker, pontificating that without him, the government had entered a crisis. Under the slogan "Ukraine Needs Lytvyn," his Lytvyn Bloc won a seat in the Rada in the 2007 snap elections, after which Lytvyn generously recouped all the advertising costs of Russian (Oleksandr Yakovlevich Korotenko) and American political strategists.

With the smallest faction (20 seats), it would seem Lytvyn couldn't expect much in the way of dividends. However, his ambitions were already overflowing: he immediately declared his desire to regain the speaker's seat, making it the main condition for joining the parliamentary majority. Lytvyn had to wait a whole year for this offer, and during that time, Viktor Yushchenko appointed him acting rector of the National University – despite the fact that this was a blatant violation of the law prohibiting members of parliament from holding multiple positions.

As a result of the 2008 parliamentary crisis, the 20 mandates of the Lytvyn Bloc became a "golden share": without them, the majority (Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) constantly lacked the votes to pass decisions. Lytvyn returned to the chair of the Verkhovna Rada speaker, where he once again began pursuing a policy of maneuvering between the current and future authorities. Until 2010, he blocked decisions that undermined the interests of the Party of Regions, and his calculations were correct. Lytvyn handed over his "golden share" to the new pro-presidential majority in exchange for retaining his seat – responding to accusations of venality by claiming that he was "strengthening political stability in the country." But soon he began flirting with the United Opposition. In particular, in 2012, Lytvyn tried in every way to disrupt the vote on the language law, and when it was finally passed with the help of Vice Speaker Adam Martynyuk, he even resigned (seriously or pretended), seeing that this issue was fundamentally important for the opposition.

This maneuvering has significantly lowered Litvin's already low rating. Moreover, according to data Skelet.OrgHe was punished by the "Donetsk people": his People's Party no longer had a chance in the 2012 elections, and he was elected to parliament in the 65th single-member constituency—in his hometown of Zhytomyr Oblast. He did the same in 2014, after which he joined the "People's Will" parliamentary group, composed of such "politicians without principles" as Ivan Fursin, Mikhail Poplavsky, Alexander Onishchenko, Vasily PetovkaThis was a typical political bench, waiting for a chance to once again become a "golden share" and sell their votes at a high price to the new parliamentary majority. However, it was no longer controlled by Lytvyn, who had lost his former influence. This was in part because his brother, Nikolai, had lost his "trump card" position.

The events of 2014 demonstrated that the Border Service was deeply tainted not only by corruption but also by treason. The days when border troops were expected and able to be the first to confront an aggressor and delay their attack were a thing of the past: Mykola Litvin's Border Service spent over 13 years learning only how to take bribes and protect smuggling. And it was this service that, in the spring of 2014, first allowed "little green men" to appear in Crimea and then allowed Girkin and Kozitsyn's Russian "volunteers" into Donbas. The bloody battles of August and September sealed the deal: battalion commanders who survived Savur-Mohyla and Ilovaisk accused Mykola Litvin of stripping the border bare, and the commander of "Sector D," Petro Litvin, of fleeing the battlefield in panic.

Following this, in October 2014, President Poroshenko dismissed Mykola Lytvyn from his post as head of the Border Service. Petro Lytvyn also lost his position, but not for long: in the summer of 2016, he was appointed to the Ground Forces Directorate, effectively receiving a promotion.

The brilliance and plagiarism of the low-income beneficiary Vladimir Litvin

Sources of Skelet.Org Some claim the Litvins could have simply sold out to Russia in exchange for guarantees of the inviolability of their Crimean property. Like many other Ukrainian politicians, the Litvins retained not just houses with sea views, but entire complexes on the annexed peninsula. For example, the Oreanda Plaza, built in a picturesque location near Yalta. Back in 2003, Kindergarten No. 18 stood on its site. It was leased to Renaissance-Yug LLC, after which it was privatized, and the 1,3-hectare plot of land it occupied was granted a long-term (49-year) lease. The kindergarten was closed and demolished, and three multi-story buildings, the Oreanda Plaza Hotel with swimming pools and a helipad, were built in its place. According to available information, the owners of Oreanda Plaza are shareholders Olga Kovernik from Dnepropetrovsk, Crimean politician Sergei Karnaukh, Oleg Kunchenko from Yalta, and Tatyana Konstantinovna Litvin.

The former speaker and his wife own a wide range of real estate: an apartment on Instytutska Street (260 square meters), a residential building in Koncha-Zaspa (550 square meters), a house in Pechersk (approximately 500 square meters), and "dachas" in the villages of Ukrainka and Ivankovychi (Kyiv Oblast). This list is perhaps incomplete. However, Lytvyn prefers to live in a state-owned house (600 square meters), granted to him for permanent use in late 2004, along with the title of Hero of Ukraine. Interestingly, no attempts were made to take this legally state-owned "dacha" from Lytvyn under Yushchenko, Yanukovych, or after the Euromaidan. Apparently, it is the subject of some kind of permanent agreement. Moreover, Volodymyr Lytvyn, as a four-time beneficiary (SBU pensioner, former speaker, Hero of Ukraine, and combat veteran), enjoys a discount (at least 50%) on utility bills.

“Khatynka” by Vladimir Litvin

The Lytvyns rent out most of their "dachas," which earned them around 670 hryvnias in rent last year. Among their tenants are some interesting people: for example, Yuriy Dagayev, chairman of the Zhytomyr public movement "Hromadska Varta — Lustration of Power," founded in February 2014. Perhaps that's why no one ever even mentioned Lytvyn's lustration?

Incidentally, Volodymyr Lytvyn never feared the Maidan revolution—either the first or even the second. Moreover, on January 25, 2014, at the height of the street fighting in Kyiv, Lytvyn hosted the wedding of his son Ivan. Coincidentally or not, his chosen one was Tatyana Terekhova, the daughter of Andriy Derkach and granddaughter of Leonid Derkach, an old acquaintance of Lytvyn's from the 90s. The wedding took place at the Intercontinental Hotel (2a Velyka Zhitomirskaya Street), with Russian TV host Andrey Malakhov as toastmaster, and Philipp Kirkorov and Verka Serduchka entertaining the guests. To ensure the revolution wouldn't disrupt the festivities, a company of Internal Troops and a Berkut detachment guarded the Intercontinental Hotel throughout the evening.

Where does a pensioner entitled to benefits get such a fortune? After all, according to his 2015 income declaration, Volodymyr Lytvyn's family is far from wealthy by the standards of Ukrainian politicians:

Volodymyr Lytvyn: Does Ukraine need a professional Judas?

But Litvin's business has been a closely guarded secret since the 90s. Only his daughter, Elena, advertises her shopping center for wealthy women, "House of Luxury Villa Gross," attempting to cultivate an image as a trendsetter in the capital's fashion scene. However, this "mega-boutique" is said to be unprofitable and exists only thanks to the financial support of her father and Uncle Kolya.

However, Vladimir Lytvyn's income from his "teaching activities" is annually depleted by the sale of his own books—of which he has already written several dozen. The secret of this graphomania was exposed back in 2002, when Lytvyn was caught plagiarizing. Specifically, his work "Civil Society: Myths and Reality" turned out to be a simple translation of an article by American Carnegie Endowment scholar Thomas Carothers. And the three-volume "History of Ukraine," published by Lytvyn between 2003 and 2005, turned out to be a digest of excerpts from various history textbooks—not even rewritten, but scanned using FineReader. Moreover, whoever scanned these texts forgot to correct a good half of the spelling errors in titles and names made by FineReader—meaning the texts were also checked by a program, and by someone with very little knowledge of history or geography. I wonder if it was a hired illiterate “literary ghostwriter” or Academician Litvin himself?

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org

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