Rotten "Osnova": whom Taruta is trying to build a party with

Rotten "Osnova": whom Taruta is trying to build a party with

The recipe for political suicide is very simple: create a 350 political party in Ukraine, appoint its leader an active “regional” and an enemy of Euromaidan, make sure to include an accomplice of terrorists among its members, and call it the Ukrainian equivalent of “Al-Qaeda.”

That is exactly what People's Deputy and billionaire Serhiy Taruta did, whose posters have been plastered across almost all of Ukraine lately.

Journalists at 1News analyzed what kind of party “Osnova” is, why Taruta himself did not become its head, and—most importantly—who makes up its backbone. Frankly, it was hard to believe the results until the end, but the facts speak for themselves.

Phantom registration

Serhiy Taruta presented the “Osnova” party in April 2017, but rumors about its creation began circulating as early as the end of 2016. Interestingly, the name of the terrorist group “Al-Qaeda” translates from Arabic precisely as “osnova” (foundation). And that coincidence, as it turned out, was not accidental—but more on that later.

“Al-Qaeda (Arabic: القاعدة‎, translation: ‘osnova’, ‘foundation’, ‘establishment’) is an international Sunni jihadist terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda is responsible for planning and carrying out a number of major terrorist attacks, including the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States.” Source: Wikipedia.

At first, omniscient sources reported that the party’s development involved the founder of Morshynska, former head of Lviv region Mykola Kmit, and Andriy Hordiychuk, chairman of the agrarian corporation Svarog West Group. However, we found no confirmation of this. Moreover, given the composition of Osnova’s main speakers, it is highly unlikely that pro-Ukrainian businessmen participated in it.

The media wrote that Osnova was registered in February 2017. But neither documents nor confirmation from the Ministry of Justice supported that information. The party’s official website also does not disclose its founding data or structure. Therefore, to find out whom Taruta considers “people of action” (as the Osnova slogan puts it), it was necessary to monitor the press.

“Natural-born suicides”

The leader of the Osnova party, Taruta announced in April, is one Andriy Nikolaienko. To the general public he seems young and quite pleasant. But Nikolaienko’s biography is full of episodes that should have sent him fleeing far beyond Rostov after the Revolution of Dignity. In the winter of 2014, at the height of Maidan, then-president Viktor Yanukovych appointed Nikolaienko head of the Kirovohrad regional state administration. The young “governor” was remembered for his ardent criticism of Euromaidan and for frightening residents of what is now Kropyvnytskyi, claiming that “radicals from other regions” planned to storm the regional administration.

Kirovohrad region is well known to Nikolaienko because in the fifth and sixth convocations of the Verkhovna Rada he was an assistant-consultant to Party of Regions deputy Serhiy Larin. The same Larin who later became head of Kirovohrad region and later moved to work as deputy head of the Presidential Administration under Serhiy Lyovochkin.

Larin is also known for forming the Party of Development of Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity together with other “regional” figures Yuri Miroshnichenko, Iryna Horina, and Mykola Skoryk. The party was funded from Lyovochkin’s generous pocket and planned as the successor to the Party of Regions. But now it is rarely heard of, and Lyovochkin is more concerned with protecting his own “Mezhyhirya-2.”

Another active party speaker for Taruta is Kateryna Vaydich. Her profile is mainly interesting because until May 2017 she was the leader of the People’s Force party. That party represents little, although it has existed since 2010. Upon resigning as leader of People’s Force, Vaydich called on her party members to join Osnova’s ranks, and some did.

For example, Rostyslav Kondryk joined Taruta’s party; he presents himself as an expert on EPR systems and e-commerce. Previously Kondryk was a member of the Youth Party of Ukraine—the same party once led by former youth minister and current Opposition Bloc deputy Yuriy Pavlenko. It is unknown whether Taruta’s proximity to the ideals of the Party of Regions played a role in Kondryk joining his project, but those ideals are certainly not foreign to him.

The most interesting person Kateryna Vaydich brought into Osnova is Denys Sheybut. Politically informed readers know this name well. Denys’s father, Viktor Sheybut, was a prominent figure in Viktor Yanukovych’s team. He was deputy head of the tax police and head of the Department for Combating Corruption in the State Tax Administration of Ukraine. Put simply, Viktor Sheybut was the right-hand man of Mykola Azarov and Viktor Yanukovych. Moreover, he is one of those to whom the fleeing president managed to hand out a medal at the end.

Denys Sheybut has a sister, Kateryna. After the Revolution of Dignity she did what in civilized countries could earn a life sentence—she joined the ranks of terrorists. As early as 2014 she actively participated in Denys’s election campaign when he ran for the Kyiv City Council. But now she lives in Donetsk, runs the spirits enterprise “Katya-plus” registered in the DNR, and closely associates with leaders of the self-proclaimed republic. Kateryna Sheybut actively participates in sponsoring separatists and finances the terrorist battalion “Kalmius.”

In September 2016 journalists photographed Viktor Sheybut in central Kyiv entering a restaurant. They were struck by how a Yanukovych associate and the father of a terrorist accomplice could stroll around Kyiv calmly while his name was never mentioned in Maidan-related cases.

Viktor Sheybut near a restaurant in Kyiv, September 2016

As we can see, no one is particularly disturbing his son—Denys Sheybut—who actively promotes the Osnova party. Moreover, perhaps it is precisely because of his father that Denys found the ideas of former “regional” Serhiy Taruta appealing.

Another Osnova speaker is Volodymyr Polochaninov—a former People’s Deputy who became a so-called “tushka” (turncoat). Taruta presents Polochaninov as the only deputy who voluntarily resigned his powers, but he does not say what preceded that step or what consequences it had.

Andriy Nikolaienko, Serhiy Taruta, and Volodymyr Polochaninov

Polochaninov began his political career in the ranks of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, from which he was elected to Kyiv City Council. Later he served as deputy to the Party of Regions’ head of the Kyiv regional state administration Anatoliy Prysyazhnyuk, and subsequently ended up first in Batkivshchyna and then in the People’s Front.

Interestingly, while a deputy in the Verkhovna Rada, Polochaninov together with MP Andriy Pavelko (also a “tushka”) founded the Democratic party. Pavelko was later expelled from Batkivshchyna and is now head of the Football Federation of Ukraine. Moreover, Pavelko’s name is well known because his father-in-law Leonid Serhiienko was also a Batkivshchyna deputy. Pavelko’s son Mykyta recently married the daughter of Dnipro businessman Oleksandr Petrovskyi, who is at odds with Ihor Kolomoisky.

This whole tangled connection shows that Polochaninov has good contacts. But there is another interesting fact: it turns out that Taruta’s current party member is or at least was a business partner of one of the Opposition Bloc leaders, Yuriy Boyko. The publication Ukrainska Pravda’s Economic Truth published a series called “Boyko’s Water Utilities” in 2015, which clearly indicates that it was Polochaninov—whose father headed the water utility in Bila Tserkva—who helped the ex-regional seize communal property.

Polochaninov does not hide that he is friendly with Boyko: “I have known Boyko for many years. Sometimes we play football, ride bicycles; he brought me back to hockey after 20 years’ break, for which I am grateful.”

Finally, the circle of Osnova’s speakers closes with one Yaroslav Arsiriy. He is well acquainted with party leader Andriy Nikolaienko, having served as his deputy during Nikolaienko’s leadership of Kirovohrad region. Therefore, if his boss opposed Euromaidan, he likely held similar views. That is why they are now together again, but under Taruta’s leadership.

So, as we can see, Osnova’s foundation (a funny tautology) turned out to be rotten. It includes active “regionals,” clear opponents of the Revolution of Dignity, and even people close to the DNR. If Taruta considers all these people worthy of the right to participate in the political life of post-revolution, war-torn Ukraine, then he can be considered a true traitor to national interests. In this context, even the choice of colors for the party’s symbols reveals his essence: white, blue, and red. Whose flag does that remind you of?

Anna Mezhova

1news.com.ua