Cognitive Modeling: Shuliak, Stolar and Tkachenko

Cognitive Modeling: Shuliak, Stolar and Tkachenko

The hyped Ukrainian Telegram channel "Ukraine Now" is a project of the Institute of Cognitive Modeling (ICM), which, through its founders, was connected to the notorious developer and MP from the pro‑Russian party OPZZh, Vadym Stolar, the head of Servant of the People Olena Shuliak, and Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. During Petro Poroshenko’s presidency the future ICM co‑founders openly worked for Yuriy Boyko and Serhiy Lyovochkin, and after Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory they switched to serving the government of Oleksiy Honcharuk. According to its representatives, ICM continues to work with Denys Shmyhal’s government and with certain ministries.

KievVlast learned about this from an article in Ukrainska Pravda by Vika Maksymova (Chesno movement).

KievVlast republishes that article with its own editorial edits, abridgments, and additions.

Shuliak, Stolar and Tkachenko

In 2019 year, on the eve of the presidential and parliamentary elections, ICM created the scandalously known supposed psychologist Spartak (actually Oleksandr) Subbota. Subbota’s partners at ICM were Viktor Berezenko, Dmytro Tsarenko and Oleksiy Ivanov. ICM has now been renamed LLC “Premiumgold,” which already belongs to Uzbek citizen Bahodirzhon Teshaboyev, likely because Uzbekistan has been designated an offshore zone in Ukraine since 2017 year.

At first ICM worked exclusively in the educational field, judging by its declared KVEDs, but this changed when at the beginning of 2020 year the Servant of the People party transferred 5 million hryvnias to ICM. Before signing the contract with the “Servants,” ICM reprofiled itself within a few weeks and began conducting sociological research.

Asked by the Chesno movement why the party allocated 5 million hryvnias to a newly created structure after a year in parliament, Servant of the People head Olena Shuliak gave no response.

Former head of Servant of the People and first deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Kornienko assures that this cooperation was short‑lived – focus groups and Spartak Subbota’s pro bono lectures took place during January–February 2020 year. “Then the research cooperation was halted. The institute also offered a pro bono series of online lectures for those wishing to learn the basic foundations of mass communication,” Kornienko assures.

This cannot be verified because the single‑party majority has blocked restoration of party reporting on the spending of state funds they receive from the state budget for the third year in a row.

However, after receiving 5 million hryvnias from Servant of the People (80% of ICM’s profit for 2020 year), Daria Shuliak — Olena Shuliak’s daughter — appeared among ICM’s employees.

This became one of Daria Shuliak’s first workplaces as a “creative writer” with a salary of 20 thousand hryvnias per year, as evidenced by her mother’s declaration.

While Daria Shuliak worked at ICM, it gained an interesting client — Vadym Stolar’s media holding Live Network, the notorious developer, former “supervisor” of Kyiv and parliamentarian from the banned pro‑Russian OPZZh. At the same time Stolar began transferring part of his construction‑schematic business to Medvedchuk, as journalist Maksym Opanasenko of Bihus.Info reported in late January in the segment “OPZZh Pictures.”

This established an open business connection between Olena Shuliak and Vadym Stolar.

We should also recall that another well‑known link between the Verkhovna Rada Committee on State Government Organization, Local Self‑Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning chaired by Olena Shuliak and major developers is her parliamentary cooperation with the committee’s secretary Dmytro Isaienko, elected from OPZZh under the so‑called Stolar‑Medvedchuk quota.

Dmytro Isaienko, in addition to his political post, still holds the position of vice president of the Confederation of Builders of Ukraine and is the de facto owner of the group of construction companies “Perfect Group.”

ICM benefited not only from Shuliak and Stolar. Svetlana Paveletska, who during Oleksiy Honcharuk’s premiership headed the government communications office, also worked there. However, government cooperation with ICM began while Honcharuk was still prime minister. In a comment to Chesno, Paveletska said she worked at ICM until June 2022 year.

Note that Oleksiy Honcharuk became prime minister from the position of head of BRDO, where Olena Shuliak also worked and led the construction direction in that grant‑funded structure. At the start of her political career Olena Shuliak was even tipped for the ministerial position at the Ministry for Regional Development.

Also from BRDO came at least Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov, who supports the city‑assaulting bill No. 5655, and Servant of the People MP Vitaliy Bezhin, who also works on the urban planning committee.

While working at ICM, Paveletska whitewashed Vadym Stolar, urging not to demonize “Vadym Mykhailovych.” “Our owner [Stolar] has a positive influence on the collective [Live Networks]. He is as open as possible. He communicates, meets, visits the channel. For people it is always important to know who they work for,” Paveletska said.

At the same time, when ICM ran Live Networks, Anna Tkachenko, the wife of Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, came to work for the media holding and headed its digital department.

Another interesting fact: previously Svetlana Paveletska was a board member of "1+1 media" and a business partner of the current Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko in the publishing house "#книголав."

Among ICM’s clients, besides the notorious developer Stolar, was also the International Fund “Pokrov” of pro‑Russian former MP and cleric of the UOC‑MP Vadym Novynskyi.

On government communications financed from the budget

The organization’s website lists cooperation with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the only ministry that conducted tender procurement among all ministries was the Ministry of Culture – in the fall of 2020 year the ministry announced a competition for creating a communications strategy worth more than 800 thousand hryvnias.

No information about the competition participants was found in open sources, nor were voting results, which should have been on the site. In response to Chesno’s inquiry the ministry stated that only LLC "Institute of Cognitive Modeling" and LLC "MIU Production" participated in the competition.

We remind readers that former general director of "1+1" and ex‑MP from Servant of the People Oleksandr Tkachenko was already Culture Minister at the time the tender was held.

At the same time, ICM co‑founders and Svetlana Paveletska spoke about working with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Digital Transformation. For example, in March 2020 year they created the Telegram channel "Koronavirus_info" and a like‑named Viber community. The Ministry of Health lists them as official channels on its site, but ICM is not mentioned. Although in interviews ICM leaders said they were the ones developing "Koronavirus_info" and had offered the idea to the Ministry of Health.

With the start of Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, "Koronavirus_info" was renamed to "Ukraine Now," one of the largest news Telegram channels in the Ukrainian segment. Open sources state that the channel is run in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Government. However, in comment to Chesno, ICM said that this cooperation is currently suspended.

Interestingly, in the last 90 days ICM spent more than 15 thousand dollars promoting posts linking to the channel on Facebook. At the same time the company’s income for the past year was a little over 30 thousand hryvnias. ICM insists that this advertising was paid from donor funds.

ICM writes that "Ukraine Now" is "one of the largest verified sources of reliable information." But it is not known for certain who exactly verified this channel.

Connections to the Party of Regions, OPZZh and Yermak

ICM co‑founders Viktor Berezenko and Dmytro Tsarenko are closely connected to former “Regional” party members and developers.

Viktor Berezenko is listed as a public aide to sixth convocation MP from the Party of Regions Elbrus Tedeeyev. An important detail – at the same time the current Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak was also an aide to Regions MP Tedeeyev. From 2011 to 2015 year Berezenko headed the NGO "Center for Political Decisions," some political technologists from which in 2014 year worked with the campaign of the Opposition Bloc, in particular with Serhiy Lyovochkin.

One of the Center’s founders was Serhiy Vlashchenko – Vadym Stolar’s chief PR man and son of former general producer of Medvedchuk’s ZIK channel, Nataliya Vlashchenko. According to KievVlast, Berezenko and Vlashchenko have not communicated for quite a long time. Serhiy Vlashchenko is now likely abroad together with Stolar’s office. Berezenko, judging by his Facebook page, also mostly stays abroad, where he engages in various informational and volunteer activities.

Later Dmytro Tsarenko joined the organization – he is the brother of the well‑known “Regional” Mykhailo Tsarenko, now a Kyiv City Council deputy from OPZZh by Stolar’s quota. Until 2012 year Dmytro Tsarenko was the general producer of New Channel and is a long‑time acquaintance of Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. So Stolar’s link to Tkachenko via ICM has deep roots.

In 2018–2019 years ICM worked for one of the leaders of the Regions and OPZZh, Yuriy Boyko, who was then running for President. At that time another Berezenko‑Tsarenko business, Seetarget, joined Boyko’s campaign; during 2018–2019 years Seetarget periodically published inflated sociological poll results in favor of Boyko, which were then actively disseminated by the Inter TV channel (Serhiy Lyovochkin).

Then Seetarget representative Oleksiy Borovskyi said that "when it comes to resolving the problem of war, the candidate from the South‑East, Yuriy Boyko, is clearly associated with that issue." And Spartak Subbota, who later became a partner in the company, wrote in his Russian‑language column in Ukrainska Pravda: "... Yuriy Boyko is traditionally supported by the East and people for whom issues of restoring peace and social protection currently remain most important."

Two or three Institutes of Cognitive Modeling

A year before ICM, Tsarenko and Berezenko created the "Agency for Social Capital." No information about this company could be found. That name remained until July 2020 year, when the “Agency” was renamed to another Institute of Cognitive Modeling.

The reason may be hidden in a ruling of the Kyiv District Administrative Court (OASK). It states that ICM appealed a decision to cancel a single tax payer registration in May 2020 year and a tax notice. The proceedings are still listed as open.

It is this renamed ICM, not the institute that was in OASK, that since then has carried out activities, including participating in public procurements. According to YouControl data, up until April 2023 year there were actually two Institutes of Cognitive Modeling.

The company that had tax problems was renamed “Premiumgold” and sold to the owner of a number of Ukrainian companies, Bahodirzhon Teshaboyev from Uzbekistan (the country has an “offshore” status).

In reality there are still two Institutes of Cognitive Modeling — because there is a namesake public organization. Its founder and head for some time was Spartak Subbota. He was later replaced by Kateryna Kubenko, the former head of Stolar’s channels during his cooperation with ICM, who still runs the NGO.

As a summary, it is worth recalling two simple things.

First. Russia’s war against Ukraine has been ongoing since February 2014 year.

Second. From then until 2019 year ICM’s founders — Spartak Subbota, Dmytro Tsarenko, Viktor Berezenko — helped pro‑Russian politicians‑collaborators to stay in power.

Is that a sufficient reason for the Ukrainian authorities not to cooperate with them?

The answer to this question seems obvious.

kievvlast.com.ua