Death of Andriy Ivanchuk: what’s wrong with the official version

Death of Andriy Ivanchuk: what’s wrong with the official version

As the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada announced today, on 25 September, Ukrainian MP Andriy Ivanchuk has died. The cause of death is not disclosed, but according to information from some publications the fifty-year-old deputy from Fatherland died from a thrombus that had broken off.

Most likely this will be the official cause of death. There would be nothing strange about this if not for certain aspects of Ivanchuk’s biography, about which, for some reason, everyone who wrote about his sudden death is quietly silent. Of course, about the dead people you either say nothing or the truth. Therefore, understanding the speaker of parliament, Stepan Shul, who remains silent, we will still draw attention to some aspects of the life of the three-term deputy Andriy Ivanchuk.

First, let’s recall his parliamentary biography — in three convocations, Ivanchuk was first elected to the Rada in 2012 year from Batkivshchyna and even served as deputy head of the faction — he managed to switch three political forces: from the People’s Front to Yulia Tymoshenko, then returned to his friend Yatsenyuk, and finally joined the Dovira group.

Nothing special about this, but during his parliamentary career he also figured in other scandals. In 2021 the Office of the Prosecutor General opened (on a second attempt) a criminal case against Ivanchuk for button-pushing, but, as everyone understands, the case was a lame formality — for voting for yourself “and that guy,” you need to arrest half the parliament. So, although formally it was a crime, Ivanchuk’s act did not provoke particular dissatisfaction among voters long accustomed to such tricks by their “servants.” Especially against the backdrop of other colleagues who fabricate worse.

However, it’s worth recalling and the disgusting fight Ivanchuk was involved in in 2015 year, when along with a crowd of his fellow deputies he attacked Oleg Barna, beating a war hero. (Oleg Barna came to parliament from the war and went back to it in February last year, where he died in April 2023, defending his country on the front, unlike the former “frontline” Ivanchuk). Still, this also only characterizes the late politician and does not cast doubt on the official version of his death.

Doubts that Ivanchuk’s death was natural are raised by several things. First, a joint business with Ihor Kolomoyskyi, which Ivanchuk denied and Kolomoyskyi confirmed.

Of course, it’s absurd to claim that a disgraced oligarch is somehow involved in the deputy’s death. But what is striking is that Andriy Ivanchuk, as head of one of the key committees of the Rada on economic policy, had a joint business with Ihor Kolomoyskyi, in the field of alternative energy, to which he attempted to push through a corresponding law. And he denied obvious things at the same time.

It’s an old case, and it says not that the oligarch somehow is involved in the death of the deputy, but that Ivanchuk’s biography is far from as clean as what is now proclaimed from high tribunes, mourning his death.

Moreover, the connections with Kolomoyskyi fade against the background of the story about a forceful seizure of the Sofia fitness center in downtown Kyiv by the BF Group, in which Ivanchuk is implicated. Moreover, during a journalist investigation it turned out that Belarusians were involved in the raider seizure. More precisely — Arthur Granz, a Belarusian-Ukrainian businessman and Ivanchuk’s friend.

The story happened in 2017 year, when the firm BF Group seized the fitness center opposite the Ministry of Justice by force. The director and founder of the firm was Ivanchuk’s aide in parliament, Yuriy Hryshchenko. Another founder was Volodymyr Yatsenuk. The latter is a relative of the “frontline” Arseniy, whom the late Ivanchuk defended so fiercely, beating Barna with a crowd. Later, through a number of Cyprus offshore companies, BF Group passed into the ownership of Artur Grance, Ivanchuk’s friend.

Ivanchuk, of course, denied any connection with the firm and even with Grishchenko himself, but suddenly it turned out that not only a firm but also Ivanchuk’s modest home in Ivankovychi near Kyiv was registered to the latter:

And again offshore structures appeared — Ivanchuk even registered his own house through the Virgin Portdil Corp.

In addition, Ivanchuk’s biography shows that he is closely connected with another oligarch — Leonid Yurushyev, long-time main sponsor of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his “Front for Change.”

Leonid Yurushyev is a very private businessman, so few know that this Donetsk-born, who now has a Greek passport, jointly built the Leonardo business center in Kyiv with Rinat Akhmetov, and in his Intercontinental had the headquarters of Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. In 2014 year Yurushyev promptly switched patrons and began investing in Yatsenyuk, bringing Ivanchuk into parliament among others. For this he received almost a monopoly position on the duty-free market under Yatsenyuk’s premiership and had influence on the scandalous Ukrzaliznytsia at the same time. Precisely during Yatsenyuk’s tenure, when Ivanchuk defended his party boss with fists in the parliament, Yurushyev’s Dniprovagyontrembud plant received half a billion hryvnias worth of orders from Ukrzaliznytsia.

These scandals have faded into oblivion, but against the backdrop of the sudden death of a perfectly healthy and not old deputy, they seem to look at things from a somewhat different angle. Especially given that Yatsenyuk, unlike the majority of former authorities, currently seems to have no particular claims against him. Nor against his sponsors. At the same time, it is interesting that Ivanchuk, who ran as an independent and did not join the Servant of the People faction, held in the last parliament a fairly decent seat on the committee on finance, customs and taxpayer policy.

Of course, all these calculations may be pure coincidence, but one should remember that Ivanchuk’s strange death in the current Rada is far from the first. At least the death of “servant of the people” Anton Polyakov, who shortly before his methadone overdose in a taxi moved to Kolomoyskyi’s group “For the Future.” Nevertheless, we hope Andriy Ivanchuk’s death was indeed a tragic accident. However, it still raises questions, especially given his biography.