Spiders in a Jar and a “Coup” in the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council

Spiders in a Jar and a “Coup” in the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council

In Zaporizhzhia and the region, the struggle over redistribution of power and positions continues, and accordingly — over access to the allocation of budgetary resources.

According to the editorial office of Vidkryta Ukraina, a coup in the Zaporizhzhia regional council is being prepared in the near future.

The gang of four

The initiator of the “coup” is a newly formed group that has united several notorious Zaporizhzhia figures.

The first member of this “coalition” is businessman Vemir Davityan, who did not make himself known until last fall, when this young man began presenting himself as the “watcher” for Zaporizhzhia on behalf of Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

In the group he is responsible for ties with the central government: Vemir Davityan managed to convince Kyrylo Tymoshenko of his ability to manage processes at the local level.

In reality, the businessman has no significant influence, so he is forced to constantly look for allies.

Currently his allies turned out to be the well-known Marchenko brothers — Vladyslav and Mark, who became notorious for taking part in corruption schemes in the 2016–2017 years and for maintaining the Samopomich party; Vladyslav also previously served as deputy head of the regional council.

The Marchenko brothers’ resources are money, connections in political circles that remained from the previous term, and influence over part of Servant of the People.

In particular, Marchenko is a bridge from Davityan to another influential force in the region — Metinvest.

The brothers’ connections with Zaporizhstal have been well known since 2015.

Now Vladyslav Marchenko calls Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov his “roof.”

Overall, the media have already written that the Marchenko brothers are trying to revive in Zaporizhzhia the institution of those “watchers,” which faded after the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych and the investigations into the “former watcher” Yevhen Anisimov.

Also in the group is Zaporizhzhia regional council deputy Viktor Shcherbyna, who previously headed the Zaporizhzhia district state administration and the funeral service of Zaporizhzhia district and is closely connected to the “funeral” business.

Formally Shcherbyna was elected from Batkivshchyna, but he plays his own independent game, moreover — against his fellow party members.

His resource is primarily financial.

Participation in the “funeral” business and in resolving land issues in Zaporizhzhia district are criminal, but very lucrative areas of activity.

One example of how this group operates is connected precisely with current events.

To secure safety for themselves, the accomplices wanted to buy the loyalty of the head of the local Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police.

This unit, among other things, deals with economic crimes, so it is a “threat” to such a company of corrupt actors.

However, according to our information, the bribery attempt failed.

And the group decided simply to replace the head of the Department of Strategic Investigations by bribing high officials in Kyiv.

In this, Vemir Davityan acts as the negotiator, and Viktor Shcherbyna is the sponsor of the operation.

The Marchenko brothers are not involved in this process, except that Vladyslav Marchenko … let slip about this situation in his private conversations.

The takeover plan

The current convocation of the Zaporizhzhia regional council could still have not begun its work because no one could form a stable majority and elect a chair.

This was the first, but by no means the last, failure of the aforementioned Vemir Davityan.

Despite his promises to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, he still could not “bend” the deputies to Servant of the People.

In the end, the deputies themselves reached a fragile compromise.

Oleh Zhuk was elected chair of the regional council, a Servant of the People member and a person of former governor Vitaliy Bohovin, but without experience and without political ambition.

The deputy chairs became representatives of For the Future (Hennadiy Fuks, who cooperates with Vemir Davityan), the Opposition Bloc (Lyudmyla Lyubym), and Batkivshchyna (Vladyslav Kutsenko).

Davityan’s coup plan, together with the Marchenko brothers and Shcherbyna, foresees destroying this unstable coalition, removing Oleh Zhuk and replacing him with a person loyal to the “watchers,” as well as expelling deputies Lyudmyla Lyubym and Vladyslav Kutsenko from the deputy chairs.

Overall the group wants to completely nullify the influence of the “Opposition Bloc” members (for example, former MP Yevhen Balytskyi) and of the Kutsenko-Kolesnikov faction (who in turn have long been associated with MP Serhiy Sobolev).

To do this, the “conspirators” plan to create a new coalition composed of For the Future, Servant of the People, Yednannia, and OPZZh.

In addition, two Opposition Bloc deputies are ready to join them: Oleksiy Kravchun and Ihor Chumachenko.

There are many reasons for the “coup,” the main ones — of course — are financial.

Control over the regional council also means control over the financial flows of the entire region.

Moreover, the regional state administration is headed by Oleksandr Starukh, who also cooperates with Vemir Davityan through Hennadiy Fuks.

For example, as a result of the “coup,” Viktor Shcherbyna wants to gain access to the “fat” medical budgets that are now controlled by Vladyslav Kutsenko.

Another factor behind the “coup” is the attempt by former MP and former regionalist, now Opposition Bloc deputy Yevhen Balytskyi to become the Metinvest group’s representative in Zaporizhzhia’s political circles.

The politician tried to lobby for such a position for himself in Kyiv, but only gained a large number of opponents in Zaporizhzhia, who were unhappy with the possible strengthening of Balytskyi.

At the same time, Viktor Shcherbyna does not mind taking the “watcher” position representing Davityan from the Kyiv authorities.

Therefore he is participating in the “coup” with a long-term plan — to break through to Kyrylo Tymoshenko and offer his own candidacy.

What to profit from?

The informal union of the Marchenko brothers, Vemir Davityan, and Viktor Shcherbyna promises not to last long — because each is looking for ways to undercut the other allies — but it has existed for a relatively long time.

Before the elections the Marchenko brothers could not officially get into the Servant of the People party list (they were filtered out by Kyiv as corrupt), so they simply… “bought” part of Servant of the People’s list from Vitaliy Bohovin for their people.

A dozen people closely associated with the Marchenko brothers ran on the Servant of the People lists in the elections to Zaporizhzhia city council and the regional council.

According to our information, this operation was financed by Viktor Shcherbyna.

Subsequently, Marchenko, Davityan, and Shcherbyna jointly began seizing control over budget funds in education — through Deputy Mayor Oleksandr Vlasyuk and the recently dismissed city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtyov (by the way, also involved in the “funeral” business).

Through these officials, Marchenko and Shcherbyna pressure the heads of the city education department and the tender committee.

The goal is to place their people in key positions and fully control the spending of budget funds.

The corruption scheme chosen is quite simple: tenders, including for repairs and equipment purchases, may be won by completely different and unconnected firms, but each winner must pay back for their “success” with a kickback.

Contractors of the Marchenkos and Shcherbyna, who have already won tenders, are threatened with delays in budget payments even for work already completed.

The same solution is offered — a kickback of 20%.

The Marchenko, Davityan, and Shcherbyna scheme was implemented, for example, at the regional level in the sphere of children’s recreation.

Here too, officials and those who influence them resorted to outright criminality.

Tenders were initially written to be won by firms close to the named group, as well as to deputy governors Eduard Brutman and Zlata Nekrasova.

In particular, the contest conditions were “tuned” for the victory of Berdyansk recreation facilities, while Kirylivka or Prymorsk institutions were deprived of chances to win.

This selectivity is simply explained — Berdyansk’s mayor is Valeriy Baranov, who together with governor Oleksandr Starukh belongs to the same group formed around Hennadiy Fuks and the For the Future party.

From the earned budget money, Berdyansk’s recreation facilities were also supposed to hand over 20–30% kickbacks supposedly “to the security forces” and as thanks to Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

However, firms from Kyrylivka and Prymorsk, which lost in the contest, filed a complaint with the Antimonopoly Committee and achieved justice: the AMC demanded new tenders be held.

But the regional state administration resorted to outright criminality in response: they canceled the tenders altogether, and began signing contracts for children’s recreation directly with the desired firms, without competitions.

The ideologist of this scheme was Vladyslav Marchenko, and Vemir Davityan organized the “work” through deputy governor Zlata Nekrasova.

Another scheme of Marchenko-Davityan-Shcherbyna, involving deputy governors Zlata Nekrasova and Eduard Brutman, is the embezzlement — more precisely, the slicing — of 105 million UAH for the renovation of the Higher School of Sports Mastery (HSSM).

This renovation has already become another long-term Zaporizhzhia construction project, surviving several governors.

Under the new head of the regional state administration the situation became tragicomic.

On the one hand, the contractor has already been charged 25% in kickbacks.

On the other hand, the contractor must now perform a miracle and complete the renovation by the end of the year, that is, in the remaining six months.

Otherwise 105 million UAH allocated from the state budget will simply “burn.”

Trying to get out of this situation, officials decided to close the HSSM to speed up the renovation.

They cannot postpone training for six months because of the renovation.

And considering the organizational “capabilities” of the current governor’s team, there is a risk that the HSSM reconstruction could drag on for years, if not decades.

Already a loud scandal is brewing in the sports sector related to the HSSM.

Education, medicine, recreation, sport, infrastructure — these are only a small part of the spheres into which the Marchenko brothers, Vemir Davityan, and Viktor Shcherbyna’s group are trying to put their hands.

More precisely, to put them even deeper.

Given that all participants of this group previously had problems with the law, one can only hope primarily for law enforcement, which can prevent criminal elements from taking power in Zaporizhzhia.

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