Vladimir Logvinenko: Will the "Old Donetsk" return to power again? Part 1
Those who ruled Donbas undisputed before Akhmetov and Yanukovych always tried to regain lost opportunities. They had already succeeded after the first Maidan, and they could well have tried to do the same after the second—but now counting not on Kyiv, but on Moscow. The last Soviet secretaries of city committees and "red directors," their children and sons-in-law, retrained as officials and oligarchs in independent Ukraine, but harboring no civic feelings for it.
They would feel quite comfortable in the Donetsk region of the Russian Federation, especially since many of them have long had profitable businesses in Russia. For example, Vladimir Logvinenko, the former governor of Donetsk and former CEO of the Energo concern, mysteriously disappeared from the public eye several years ago along with his associates Viktor Nusenkis and Gennady Vasiliev.
Vladimir Logvinenko. A civil servant's career
Vladimir Ivanovich Logvinenko was born on October 14, 1944, in the village of Novopidgornoye in the Dnipropetrovsk region—10 months after it was liberated by units of the 57th Army, and all local men between the ages of 17 and 50 were immediately mobilized into the Red Army. After the war, their family moved to the Donbas, where young Volodya entered the Yasinovataya Construction College in 1961. He then spent three years in the army—and was lucky enough to avoid four years in the navy (the length of compulsory military service, which lasted until 1967). Then, in 1965, he did a three-month probationary period at Construction Department No. 14 in Kramatorsk and moved to the city of Krasnoarmeysk (now Pokrovsk), where over the next nine years he made a career at Construction Department No. 1 of the Krasnoarmeyskshakhtostroy trust (from engineer to foreman), while simultaneously graduating in absentia from the Dnepropetrovsk Civil Engineering Institute.
According to Skelet.Org , 1974 was an incredibly fortunate year for Vladimir Logvinenko. First, he graduated, second, his daughter Marina was born, and third, he transferred to work as an instructor in the industrial and transport department of the Krasnoarmeysk City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. According to some sources, these second and third events were interconnected: the parents of his young wife, Tamara Aleksandrovna, helped their son-in-law launch a new, managerial career. However, from September 1977 to December 1978, Logvinenko returned to construction, working as chief engineer in Construction Department No. 6 of the Krasnoarmeyskshakhtostroy Trust. But then, for six whole years, he became an instructor in the construction department of the Donetsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. This was already a respectable position, introducing Vladimir Logvinenko to many important people – and it was this that ensured his further career advancement and business success in the early 90s.
Then, just as importantly, from 1984 to 88, Vladimir Logvinenko headed the Kramatorsk Executive Committee, and then returned to Donetsk, this time as deputy head of the regional executive committee's main planning and economic department. Finally, in 1990, the third phase of his career began, as deputy chairman of the Donetsk Regional Executive Committee and then chairman of the regional state administration. So what, it would seem? However, it's important to understand the specifics of the Donetsk region's "elite" at that time, which was divided into three groups. First, there were the "old Donetskers"—officials and party apparatchiks who had made their careers during the "period of stagnation," as well as their protégés (relatives, godparents, and friends). Second, there were the "perestroika" activists who had pushed them aside, rising in 1987-90, among whom were many new enterprise directors (mines and factories). The third group consisted of "shadow gangs" and organized crime groups, which also included their own "old-timers" (mostly "blatnye" and "tsekhoviki") and "youngsters" (cooperator-fraudsters, racketeers, and "athletes"). They developed complex connections, and in the 90s, they transformed into the very same "Donetsk gang," about which Ukrainians in other regions still know little. After all, the "Donetsk gang" is not only Akhmetov's group and the prosecutorial mafia of Vasilyev and Pshonka.
Speaking of Viktor Pshonka, while Logvinenko was serving as chairman of the Kramatorsk executive committee (effectively the city's mayor), Pshonka was also serving as department head of the Kramatorsk city committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and then as city prosecutor. This is how Logvinenko met and became close to the future prosecutor of the Donetsk region (1998-2003) and Prosecutor General of Ukraine (2010-2014). And, just as importantly, with his wife—whose parents were very influential, members of the "Starodonetsk" faction, who secured the careers of their daughter and son-in-law.
Vladimir Logvinenko: Will the "Old Donetsk" return to power again? Part 1
Vladimir Logvinenko. Coal Frauds
However, Logvinenko developed a much closer, more direct, and more businesslike relationship with Pshonka's "predecessor," Gennady Vasiliev, the Donetsk Oblast prosecutor (1991-1996). They were united by a large joint business venture: the Energo concern, one of the largest companies in Ukraine (and later Russia), which they founded and co-owned together with Viktor Nusenkis , Leonid Bayramov, and Konstantinos Papunidis.
It all began with the "coal schemes" created by several Donbas mine directors ( Zvyagilsky , Nusenkis, and others), which they used to milk the state for subsidies. Even during perestroika (the late 80s), they converted their then-state-owned mines to a "business accounting" system, allowing them greater financial independence. Initially, this allowed their management to earn a good income by creating cooperatives at the mines and conducting barter transactions, including with neighboring countries (socialist countries). But then this money became insufficient, and they resorted to outright fraud. Taking advantage of their business accounting status, the mines began to misuse state subsidies for coal mining in Donbas—in other words, to steal the money. The money was considerable, especially after the 1989 strikes (initiated by these same mine directors) forced the state to increase the size of these subsidies and limit oversight of their use. The strikers succeeded in making the subsidies directly proportional to the volume of coal mined: this, they claimed, would create an incentive for the mines to work harder. However, this immediately triggered a centuries-old scheme of fictitious production (or rather, extraction). Nusenkins purchased cheap coal in the Kuzbass, imported it to the Donbass through a system of cooperatives and small enterprises, and registered it as mined in local mines, after which he received state subsidies. Mine directors then spent these subsidies at their own discretion. The collapse of the USSR did not destroy these schemes; on the contrary, they were modernized and expanded. The chains through which Nusenkis and his partners imported Kuzbass coal to Donbas became the first "restored links" between post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia. This gave Nusenkis the opportunity to pursue a larger-scale business.
Victor Nusenkis in those days
Although this scam was successfully concealed from the public for many years (many Donbas residents still believe it was all fabrications and slanders by "Banderites"), it could not have gone unnoticed by law enforcement agencies, officials at the Ministry of Coal Industry, and the Donetsk Oblast administration. And since they allowed it to flourish, it means they profited from it. Well, on the central government side, Nusenkis had reliable cover in the person of his old patron, Nikolai Surgai (Minister of Coal Industry of the Ukrainian SSR, director of Donetskgosugleprom, and chairman of the State Coal Industry Committee of Ukraine). On the prosecutor's side, his scams were covered up by Gennady Vasiliev, who, using his connections with Akhat Bragin and Gena Uzbek, protected these schemes from the greedy hands of Donetsk organized crime groups. True, the price for these services was considerable: Vasiliev was then accepted as a business partner, making him one of the main co-owners of the Energo concern (there were rumors that part of Vasiliev's share package actually belonged to Gena Uzbek).
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Vladimir Logvinenko: Will the "Old Donetsk" Return to Power Again? PART 2
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