How Maidan Executioner Mykola Chynchin Broke into the SEB Through Oleh Tatarov

How Maidan executioner Mykola Chynchin broke into the SEB through Oleh Tatarov

While the public was outraged by the appointment of the OPZZh deputy Stelmashenko as advisor to the head of the Kherson OVA, Oleh Tatarov quietly took the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine under his control.

As the Don Quixote Telegram channel reported back in early November, “if Vadym Melnyk is not removed from the position of head of the SEB, they will make him purely a nominal figure, with the powers of a quartermaster. Already now from the Presidential Office in the SEB ‘monitoring the situation’ is Vitaliy Gagach, who, according to our information, will manage all the detectives. So Melnyk may in the future train analysts with mops and brooms. Although the difference will not be strongly felt.”

The information flashed and disappeared — public attention was skillfully diverted by the events around Stelmashenko’s appointment and dismissal as advisor to the head of the Kherson OVA, which everyone for some reason took as a big “victory.”

But behind that smokescreen personnel changes at the Bureau of Economic Security disappeared: Vitaliy Gagach became Deputy Director of the SEB. There is not yet information about this on the Bureau’s own website, but that does not change the essence — Tatarov’s godson Gagach went from merely “watching” the SEB to “watching” it with official powers.

Another Tatarov creature was introduced into the SEB structure — Mykola Chynchin. He is a lustrated former chief investigator of Maidan cases and deputy minister of internal affairs under Zakharchenko, who fled to Moscow. At one time Tatarov was subordinate to Chynchin; now the times have changed.

Recall that Oleh Tatarov in the Office of the President is in charge of law enforcement agencies, and at the same time skillfully places people personally loyal to him in leadership positions in the SBU, the MIA, the SEB and other security agencies.

Before his appointment to the Office of the President of Ukraine he worked in law enforcement agencies and supervised criminal proceedings against Tetiana Chornovil, AutoMaidan and Euromaidan activists. During the height of the Revolution of Dignity, Tatarov received the title “Honored Lawyer of Ukraine” from Yanukovych on the personal submission of then Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, submitted 16 December 2013 of that year.

According to the Anti-Corruption Center, Oleh Tatarov helped Putin’s godfather Viktor Medvedchuk escape from Ukraine, former Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration under Yanukovych Andriy Portnov and Portnov’s son of conscription age, who left the country 28 March 2022 of that year. In addition, Oleh Tatarov attempted to unblock frozen Ukrainian accounts of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which is owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

It is not surprising that the personnel Tatarov installs are appropriate — and personally loyal to him.

This is Vitaliy Gagach, a former prosecutorial worker who for two years after leaving the prosecutor’s office practiced as an attorney and is also Tatarov’s godson.

In January 2021 of that year the Kyiv District Administrative Court obliged the Ministry of Justice to remove Chynchin’s name from the list of lustrated persons. Recall that Mykola Chynchin headed the Main Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in 2013–2014 years and actively persecuted opposition members. Under Zakharchenko’s leadership. And together with Tatarov.

See, all genius is simple. Once — and you are no longer the Maidan executioner who stitched up fake cases against activists, but a victim of power who was unlawfully harmed, like Poroshenko. And the Deputy Head of the President’s Office Oleh Tatarov takes you under his wing. And promotes you to the Bureau of Economic Security. And you are again a worthy member of society.

How did the billboards put it — shall we make them together? It seems those who believed those billboards made themselves. And at the same time — the whole of Ukraine. And to divert attention from key personnel changes, the public was thrown a bone in the form of the appointment to a fringe advisor position to the head of the Kherson OVA of a worn-out character from OPZZh. And the public bought it — this essentially unnecessary appointment.

And while everyone, foaming at the mouth, tore their shirts at their chests and rejoiced at their “victory” — Stelmashenko did not become an advisor — the sensible people took control of a far more important structure by appointing far more odious and dangerous figures to its key positions than the failed advisor to the head. Kherson OVA.