The "Family" continues to seize businesses through Russian raiders, officials, and the Ukrainian judicial vertical.
A journalistic investigation revealed that terrorists continue to siphon significant resources from our pockets, receiving money from successful corporate raiding schemes and businesses belonging to the "Family," in which Ukrainian officials, who for some strange reason have escaped lustration and prison, continue to actively participate.
The financing schemes for militants in eastern Ukraine remain largely unexamined by law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the widespread belief that a significant share of this funding comes from our northern neighbor is a gross exaggeration.
You can fight external factors as much as you want, trying to uproot the system, but it won't solve much unless the roots are uprooted. Yanukovych's legacy extends far beyond the golden loaf of bread forgotten by its owner in Mezhyhirya – it encompasses years-old schemes, insiders throughout the power structure, and deliberately created loopholes in Ukrainian legislation.
For several months now, the Ukrainian press has been reporting on a corporate raid on Ukraine's grain market by former Party of Regions member Volodymyr Misik, a business partner of Mykola Azarov, and their infamous company, Kulinichi. This scheme could not only monopolize the grain market in several Ukrainian regions but also cause a genuine humanitarian catastrophe in these regions, thereby provoking mass protests. Currently, the Kyivkhlib, Sumy, and Zhytomyr grain factories are under attack from corporate raiders, regularly subjected to attacks by local regulatory and law enforcement agencies, who fabricate criminal cases against the companies to exert pressure on shareholders. Furthermore, bankruptcy proceedings are being initiated against the companies to seize assets through the appointment of controlled managers. Not only local law enforcement officials but also high-ranking officials are involved in the asset-stripping scheme. All of them, for inexplicable reasons, escaped lustration, being active accomplices of the Yanukovych regime.
Our sources in the business community claim that the scheme is coordinated by a clan of Russian raiders led by Anvar Farukshin, who are teamed up with a full-time staff consisting of Harry Wood, Alexander Sirotenko, Igor Dyachok, Tatyana Nosenko, Sergey Klets, and others. These lawyers and auditors have dubious reputations but are well-connected. They are well-versed in Ukrainian law, know its weaknesses, and have a track record of successfully siphoning off property from its rightful owners. The exploits of Farukshin and Co. are well-known in the Ukrainian press, particularly for their takeover of highly profitable food companies last year. The raiders then managed to bankrupt the Ukrainian company Radosin by seizing a promising business the company had been conducting with Polish investors. This group has been involved in a string of criminal cases for several years, which have yet to be resolved. Vudud is particularly known as the man who carried out a series of takeovers of industrial enterprises in Crimea, using his status as an insolvency administrator. In 2006, Vudud became one of the main subjects of investigative journalism in the Crimean press, and his schemes to seize the Lazurny hotel and medical rehabilitation complex in Kerch made headlines for a long time.
However, as we have discovered, the core of the scheme is not swindlers from a "brotherly country" or even local officials tainted by corruption. The threads of the scam reach into the highest offices in the capital and lead us to the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine—the judicial body responsible for resolving the most high-profile commercial disputes. The former head of the Supreme Commercial Court, Viktor Tatkov, is credited with overseeing the largest corporate raider system in Ukraine under Yanukovych. He succeeded in completely destroying any trace of legality and impartiality in the commercial courts. He countered this by building a system of complete management and coordination of the "right" decisions made by commercial court judges throughout Ukraine. With his colossal powers, Tatkov became the center of a total business takeover during the reign of his patron, Viktor Yanukovych. It was the former president who pushed through the appointment of Tatkov, then head of the Donetsk Court of Appeals, to the post of head of the highest commercial court in the country in 2010. Viktor Tatkov, Yanukovych and Pshonka's godfather, immediately began to repay the trust placed in him by proposing to the then-Guarantor a scheme previously tested in the Donetsk region to seize businesses through the combined pressure of law enforcement agencies, corporate raiders, criminals, and the courts on entrepreneurs. Tatkov's scheme was very simple: he guaranteed the raiders custom-made decisions by the Supreme Commercial Court, effectively ending all corporate conflicts. Thus, the scheme was implemented nationwide. In a short period of time, Tatkov created a system of over 500 controlled judges at various levels across Ukraine, who guaranteed favorable decisions for the "Family" businesses. As a result of this large-scale operation, according to unofficial estimates, Tatkov brought the Yanukovychs and their partners over $10 billion.
One could dismiss this as conspiracy theories, given that the Ukrainian courts have yet to formally file charges against Tatkov. However, in addition to numerous media reports, Tatkov's involvement in the aforementioned schemes is confirmed by the raiders themselves. For example, the aforementioned Farukshin openly stated that Tatkov and his then-deputy Yemelyanov were his business partners. And if one analyzes Tatkov's personnel appointments during his tenure, it's easy to see that, at the appropriate moments during legal proceedings at enterprises of interest to Farukshin, he appointed his protégé.
Tatkov is still in business today, just as he always was. Despite leaving his post last April, the system he built over recent years continues to function like clockwork. The heads of local courts, personally overseen by Tatkov, continue to serve. They quietly sat out the first few months of post-Maidan euphoria and are now actively rebuilding the entire corruption infrastructure. As for Tatkov personally, the Ministry of Internal Affairs began investigating his foreign bank accounts, which he registered in the name of his mistress, back in the summer, but over the past six months, the investigation has yielded no concrete results. Lustration has also bypassed Tatkov, although the authorities have been talking about a complete overhaul of the judicial system for almost a year now.
As a result, Tatkov continues to control the necessary business entities, enabling the "Family" to seize ever more assets, which Yanukovych uses to constantly organize supplies for Donetsk militants, as SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko has repeatedly stated. Tatkov's tips come from the same clan of Russian raiders who previously worked in tandem with the "Family" and who have now taken over some of the operational management of Yanukovych's business empire, including receiving carte blanche from the latter to further expand its borders.
Today, raiders are targeting Ukraine's grain market, an industry that forms the basis of the country's food security. With Azarov's help, raiders once managed to gain control of the Kyiv region. In just 2012-2013, the Kyiv holding company Kyivkhlib was forced to close several of its bakeries, including the Bakery and Confectionery Plant, due to administrative pressure and unfair competition from the Kulinichi company. Thus, Misik, a member of the Party of Regions, became the main monopolist in the Kyiv market, crushing competitors with the administrative steamroller of a regime loyal to him. Now, the "Family" is doing everything possible to capture the markets of the neighboring regions of Sumy and Zhytomyr. A Sumy enterprise is being subjected to armed takeovers and trumped-up tax fines. In Zhytomyr, raiders are seizing control of the enterprise using the administrative powers of local officials, such as Deputy Mayor Sukhomlin, who doesn't even publicly hide his sympathy for the Kulinichi company and its owner.
Enterprises are resisting the raiders' attempts to surrender their assets, prompting the courts and the bureaucratic machine to target their management. Criminal cases, fines, and armed takeovers have been launched. Currently, bread enterprises are waging a desperate fight against the raiders, continuing to operate and appealing to the new government to protect their strategic industry. In the case of the Sumy Bread Factory, three criminal cases have been opened (numbers 12012200010000179, 12013200440005702, and 12013200440007422) related to the raiders' actions. However, even this hasn't stopped the criminals from seizing the enterprise. This long-standing legal battle, during which the enterprise has managed to win several cases, has only one goal: bankruptcy.
The final word in this scheme lies with Tatkov, who will use court decisions to declare the enterprises insolvent and take control of them.
Thus, having gained complete control over the Kharkiv and Poltava regions, the "Family" is seeking to establish a grain monopoly in three more Ukrainian regions—Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Sumy. By destroying local producers, they intend to make the regions completely dependent and create opportunities for themselves to reap superprofits. The proceeds will, naturally, go to support militants who are shedding the blood of the Ukrainian people and destroying Ukraine's integrity.
And such situations are happening all the time today, across all sectors of the economy. Raiding schemes are becoming increasingly popular in the face of economic problems—a fact the "Family" understands perfectly well, so it's seizing the opportunity. Everyone is involved in one way or another: law enforcement, local officials, and judges. This suggests that the rules of the game in the country haven't changed, and the system continues to work for its "master," who, even from outside Ukraine, continues to rob and rape, fueling the gangs in his native land with money and weapons.
As a result, while Ukrainian soldiers defend our homeland's independence, its economy is being actively undermined from within to serve the interests of militants. And most dangerously, Ukraine's food security is being used as a tool, which, in the current situation, could lead to the most tragic consequences.
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