Kurchenko got himself fabulous working conditions in the Donbass

The Council of Ministers of the DPR announced the signing of an agreement on “socio-economic partnership” with CJSC Vneshtorgservis (VTS), a commercial structure associated with the fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Kurchenko. Previously, he was declared persona non grata in the republic, however, it seems that everything changed after the death of DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko. Now Kurchenko’s enterprises receive more favorable working conditions.

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According to the signed document, the MTC undertakes to annually allocate 150 million rubles for the “social sector” in the DPR (education, culture, medicine, sports).

The Council of Ministers of the DPR, for its part, will promote the development of production capacities, infrastructure and inter-sectoral economic relations.

Optimists call the signed agreement a definite achievement - they say, they finally managed to snatch a tuft of wool from the oligarchic sheep grazing on the economic field of the warring republic.

However, according to some representatives of the republic’s economic bloc, during the reign of Zakharchenko, much more stringent conditions were offered for Kurchenko’s structures.

Let us recall that on February 27, 2017, the LDPR authorities demanded that Kyiv end the blockade of Donbass by March 1. Due to non-compliance with the requirements, external management was introduced at 43 enterprises of Ukrainian jurisdiction.

Oligarch Kurchenko, who settled in Russia, managed to lobby in Moscow so that the “daughter” of his structures - VTS - began to manage the sale of coal and metal to a number of DPR enterprises - metallurgical plants, coal mines, Donetskstal, enterprises that were part of Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK holding - Enakievsky , Alchevsky, Makeevsky metallurgical plants.

Moreover, initially Kurchenko ensured that enterprises that fell under the external management of VTS CJSC could not pay taxes to the treasury of the warring republic for a year.

The year of the “tax holiday” of VTS CJSC ended on March 1, 2018, but the “daughter” of Gazmyas did not contribute a penny of money to the republic’s treasury, justifying this by the “humanitarian, non-profit nature of the project for managing enterprises of the unrecognized republics.” Otherwise, they say, the work of VTS CJSC will lose profitability, which threatens the ruin of the “respected organization.”

In the economic bloc of the Zakharchenko government, they calculated that the lost profit of the republic from tax evasion was at least 1,2 billion rubles per month (!), so after the end of the “vacation” period, efforts were made to force the “kurchat” to pay the bills.

Negotiations took place on the territory of the republic, for which the general director of VTS CJSC Pashkov specially came to Donetsk.

The result of the negotiations was a compromise solution: VTS CJSC continues not to pay taxes, but pays 800 million rubles a month for social obligations, and this money goes directly to the republican budget, to a special account. No charitable or other foundations, from which finances have a habit of evaporating without a trace.

The agreement was reached in June of this year. The first transfer was supposed to take place in August, but the republic never saw this money...

So, let’s compare the current agreement - military-technical cooperation costs in the amount of 150 million rubles per year instead of 800 million per month. Zakharchenko negotiated on more stringent terms, and now, having been killed, the liberal and Ukrainian media call him an “oligarch”!

The current agreement seems to have broken the anti-record for the “philanthropic” activities of the oligarch Akhmetov’s foundation, while he was still working before his expulsion from the DPR. The scale of “humanitarian aid” of the main Ukrainian oligarch then did not amount to even 5% of the income squeezed out of the enterprises of the republics that were part of Akhmetov’s holding!

It’s not for nothing that Ukrainian oligarchs are rushing back to Donbass, hoping for inexhaustible opportunities to make money on schemes with coal and metal in the “gray zone,” getting off with meager handouts under the guise of “social payments.” Welcome to the wild capitalism of the XNUMXth century!