Andriy Motovilovets: schemer from Prozorro

Andriy Motovilovets: schemer from Prozorro

Hastily forming the party 'Servant of the People' for the elections in 2019 year led to its ranks being filled with many random people and even outright charlatans, the party proved unable to rid itself of them.

Because of them, Zelensky's team has become entrenched with corruption no less than the surroundings of the previous presidents! And it would be naive to expect that by the next elections this problem will dissolve by itself without affecting their result…

It would seem that parliamentarian Andriy Motovilovets belongs to those 'servants of the people' whom one should think about last. But what do we know about this perpetually busy 'intellectual and technocrat,' as he positions himself? He is a member of the Verkhovna Rada committee on finances, taxation, and customs policy, who for two years has headed the Kyiv regional organization of the 'Servant of the People' party, previously was a top manager at Prozorro – and that’s all? But why does Motovilovets periodically attract unhealthy attention?

Possible ties

Motovilovets Andriy Viktorovych was born 29 on April 1982 in Kyiv. He grew up in Troieshchyna, where he finished secondary school No. 119. He never served in the army, which raises the question: does he want to undergo training and acquire a military specialty at one of the training grounds where mobilized Ukrainians are being sent en masse now? Probably not, since he is a deputy, he has a 'shield'!

After school, Andriy Motovilovets (by his own words) went to work as a drywall installer, while also studying at the evening faculty of Kyiv National Economic University named after Hetman. However, according to Skelet.Info sources, he found this job not through an advertisement, but got a position in one of the firms or their relatives. At the same time, no one ever saw Motovilovets in a shop coated with gypsum dust – so one can only guess what he did there. And in his senior years at university he found himself a job in his specialty as an economist.

After obtaining his degree, 2004-2006 years Andriy Motovilovets worked in a bank, where he quickly rose to head of the lending department for individuals. Yet he hides all details of this success. Perhaps, as rumors claim, the thing is that this bank was called 'Nadra'? Then this would explain a lot: who would want to stain their biography by mentioning work at one of the most scandalous banks in Ukraine's history!

In general, if you look into Motovilovets's biography, you will be surprised by its brevity. Yet this is typical of many 'Servants of the People' who do not wish to reveal their past to voters. Perhaps they hide it intentionally to appear as a new and crystal-clear political force, not linked to previous regimes or disreputable figures of Ukrainian corruption. But, as it is now obvious even to the naïvest fans of Holoborodko, the 'Servants of the People' themselves have succeeded in corruption schemes.

According to rumors, his relative may be Kyiv resident Lyudmila Motovilovets: 2013-14 years she surfaced as a public activist and head of an initiative group that organized protests against development of a forested park area in the Sviatoshyn district of the capital (at Lvivska 15), which was led by oligarch Vasyl Khmelnitsky. In this protest there would be nothing wrong if Motovilovets's best friend did not turn out to be the controversial coordinator of the 'Forum for Kyiv's Rescue' Vitaliy Chernyakhovsky. The same man repeatedly beaten, later exposed as a fraud (he organized protests on behalf of developers' competitors or demanded 'settlements' in the form of an apartment in a building under construction), and 2015-th even declared wanted as a pro-Russian provocateur.

2007-th Andriy Motovilovets himself decided to engage in the construction business. On what money remains unknown: perhaps he issued a loan to himself, or continued his parents' business. He became co-founder of OOO 'Kyiv Construction Company Alliance' (EDRPOU 35159458) and an acting company in Zaporizhzhia (35489190). Moreover, Kyiv firm 'Alliance' is cleverly hidden in a 'matryoshka' of several LLCs: 99% of its capital belongs to asset management company 'Dnipro Investor' (35263969), which in turn since 2015 year has belonged to LLC 'EnergoSupply 2015' (39580868), registered now to Olena Khomenko (no, not the one who is a Servant of the People deputy). Why such complexity?

Also his ex-wife Yulia Leonidivna Motovilovets owned the firm 'J Castom' (37783739) until the summer 2019; it is located in Odessa. After the former husband was elected to the Rada, she transferred it to Taras Tarasovych Kuzmenko – who, according to the database, was the temporary head of more than fifty firms in various parts of Ukraine. It seems this is some zic-head…

And a bit more about Motovilovets's connections. When deputies' declarations were still open to the public (they were sealed for state security reasons at the start of the war), journalists drew attention to his Kyiv apartment (94,7 sq.m). He owns it only 20%, sharing with the Potapov family (Petro Vladimrovych, Denys Petrovych, Svitlana Mykolaivna) and Natalia Viktorovna Beskina. And his current civil partner Anastasia Maikova has another apartment (87 sq.m) jointly with Mikhail Vaisberg. Who are all these people, how are they related to Motovilovets, and why the not-insignificant deputy still does not own a fully own apartment is unknown.

Andriy Motovilovets. In the Ministry of Infrastructure

We’ll further harden his biography: up to 2014 there is nothing there! If in the meantime Motovilovets diligently built a construction business, why not write about it? In a single interview, Motovilovets admitted that before Prozorro he dealt with state tenders, from which 'they' (who are they?) refused in favor of private market orders, and that his notable project was participation in the construction of the Biopharm plant in Bila Tserkva. However, Andriy Motovilovets did not specify which capacities were built, as the plant was constructed in stages from 2013 to 2018 year. And what did he do earlier?

Another interesting fact: this construction began when in 2012 Biopharm attracted American-Ukrainian investment company Horizon Capital, one of whose co-founders was the well-known Natalia Yaresko. Their paths would cross again in the future.

However, can one trust the interview of a professional storyteller? In it, for example, Motovilovets, without blinking, told journalists an exciting story about how at Euromaidan a grenade exploded under his feet, and doctors later delivered shrapnel from him, and a protester next to him fell with a severed rifle shot; how he carried a corpse from the Ukraine Hotel.

And then Motovilovets smoothly moved to 2014-th that 'a few of my friends ended up in the Cabinet' and invited him there to 'help the country.' At first they had nothing, and he offered them 'his knowledge and experience.' And so they, allegedly, began to lift the country and economy from the ruins of the Yanukovych regime! Such stories are likely suitable only for elementary schoolers, as they are written in the style of Life of Lenin by Mariya Prilyezhaeva. Yet Motovilovets told even more tales – a bit further down you will learn about them.

And what was really happening? In the fall 2014 the second Yatsenyuk government was formed, in which the Ministry of Infrastructure was headed by Andriy Pivovarovsky – previously (2006-2012) he worked in Dragon Capital of the Soros-backed businessman Tomas Fiaya. Pivovarovsky gathered around him a large team of advisers. Moreover, as reported in the article 'Abramovych and others: the modern history of VIP earners in Ukraine,' Andriy Motovilovets was invited by him as a veteran of Dragon Capital – along with Ivan Makushenko, Oleksiy Sobolev, and Oleksandr Myak. So this is his 'friends who ended up in the Cabinet'?

Andriy Pivovarovsky

However Motovilovets became not only an adviser to Minister Pivovarovsky, but also 'personal assistant' (how?) to his deputy Volodymyr Shulymeister. Known as the former financial director of the chain of supermarkets 'Foxtrot' (2006-2009), who later left amid revelations of creating shadow schemes and causing the company huge losses. And the ally of Shulymeister in the 'Foxtrot schemes' was Oleksiy Pavlenko, who in the fall 2014 became Minister of Agro-Industry. It is simply astonishing from which swindlers and fraudsters the government was formed! No wonder it brought Ukraine to a deep crisis.

Media also reported that these advisers professionally engaged in 'looting,' i.e., searching for and assessing state infrastructure objects interesting for privatization. And they received as a reward from 3 to 5 thousands of dollars per month! Recall that millions of Ukrainians then lived on 2 to 3 thousand hryvnias.

Indirect confirmation of his mega-earnings is that in the year 2015 Andriy Motovilovets registered as an individual entrepreneur (specializing in consulting services). It would seem why would a co-owner of construction firms need this? It’s simple: the reformers' team used the status of IP in their entirely legal scheme to obtain huge earnings and bypass taxes. Hundreds of various advisers and assistants received regular payments both from the ministries where they worked and from private funds with which they were connected. The money was documented as fees for consultations, they were credited to IP accounts - and they paid only a small single tax, not exceeding 1-2% of the amount received (instead of profit and military levy). And all of it legally, under reforms, anti-corruption, and a bright European future!

Motovilovets stated that his job as an adviser to the Minister of Infrastructure consisted of analyzing tender documentation – in which he allegedly became a great specialist since Maidan, when he dealt with tenders as the head of a construction company.

And if he assessed tender conditions as 'designed for a particular firm,' he would come to the head of a state enterprise (port, etc.) and pronounce this to him, while the head shyly looked down. Do you believe this? That Motovilovets was with Pivovarovsky and his deputy Shulymeister 'who watches tenders' is true, indeed! The only thing is that he did not shame the heads of ports and Ukrzaliznytsia administrations for 'discriminatory tenders,' but demanded to review them in favor of other participants – threatening dismissal.

Volodymyr Shulymeister

From what Skelet.Info later learned, Motovilovets as adviser to the minister actively protected the interests of the TIS group, which owns terminals in the South Port. Its owners are the controversial businessmen Andriy Stavnitser and Oleksii Fedorychev. Even more, it turned out that Motovilovets's wife was a PR manager of 'TIS,' which explains how she obtained the Odessa firm 'J Custom'.

Also worth noting that at the beginning of 2015 Motovilovets managed to work as adviser to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration Valentyn Reznichenko. The essence of their close cooperation remains unknown, but perhaps that is when Motovilovets, who 'looks after tenders,' shoved into his 'matryoshka of enterprises' the LLC 'Dnipro Investor.' And at the same time he built very useful connections, among which to note another adviser of Reznichenko – Yuriy Golik, who later, already for the 'Servants of the People,' became coordinator of the 'Great Construction' project (details will follow).

At the end of 2015 the 'reformers' government rocked. But mainly because it was pushed from behind by competing groups who also wanted to warm their hands on plundering the country. In December Pivovarovsky and Shulymeister submitted resignations, but if the former was dismissed immediately (and he disappeared until 2019), then Pivovarovsky sat in his chair until April – yielding to Volodymyr Omelyan. And Andriy Motovilovets remained in his position even longer, working well with the infamous Omelyan.

Under Omelyan's cover, in 2016 Motovilovets lobbied the sale of the tug fleet of the Odesa seaport to the company P&O Maritime (behind which stood Andriy Stavnitser). If the deal had succeeded, Stavnitser would have monopolized tug services in the South, bringing him up to 12-15 million dollars a year. But they prevailed because the obvious corruption component caused a colossal scandal. Motovilovets did not deny his participation, but stated that he acted in the nation’s interest — that is, everything state property should be put up for sale to attract a more 'efficient owner'! However, in fact, of this and other 'TIS' scams in the Port of the South, in November 2016 the Security Service of Ukraine conducted a series of searches, including at Stavnitser’s, Shulymeister’s, and Motovilovets’s residences. It was reported that this was done at the initiative of the new port head of the South, Ihor Tkachuk, who became a tool of the Vinnytsia interests. Interestingly, three years later, when Motovilovets became a 'Servant of the People' and Shulymeister had many friends in Zelenskiy’s party, they exacted revenge on Tkachuk, and now the SBU was harassing Tkachuk himself.

Mykhailo Shpoliansky for Skelet.Info