Steal and end up in the water: Poroshenko’s gang clears their tracks
The only area in which the post-Maidan regime in Ukraine was really strong was PR. In it, like in the Kashchei needle from a fairy tale, was the death of this regime. Without constant heavy doses of propaganda doping, the regime collapsed quite quickly, and even the ratings plummeted from 24% in April to the current 5-7%. And they continue to fall further.
Recently, the media reported the amounts spent over the past two years on “protecting the country’s information security” by the notorious Ministry of Internal Affairs. These mass entertainers “sawed up” almost half a billion hryvnia. According to the report on the implementation of the budget program last year, the largest amounts were spent on:
– production and distribution of social advertising of various formats - UAH 164,5 million;
– placement of information to protect national interests in domestic and foreign media - UAH 124,3 million;
– holding various public events both in Ukraine and abroad, including media bridges - UAH 51,5 million.
In border cities it organized festivals and exhibitions, screenings of patriotic films. Also, “in order to popularize Ukraine in the world, the UkraineNOW brand book was developed, which was presented in the USA, Great Britain, Denmark, Portugal and China.”
But why go to Portugal and China if impressive examples of creating PR phantoms from scratch are, as they say, close at hand?
Let's say, Dnepropetrovsk region. The governor was finally fired there last week. “Still”, because Mr. Valentin Reznichenko (that’s the name of our hero) after the victory of Vladimir Zelensky in April, became noticeably depressed, and, as local observers say, he began to prepare for evacuation from his home, even removed furniture from his office, imitating Pyotr Alekseevich , who stole chairs and monitors from the presidential administration.
But then, in May, something changed in the concept, and local officials began collecting signatures for an appeal addressed to Zelensky so that Reznichenko would be left in his place. The argument was the “impressive successes of the region” over the past few years.
But it didn’t work out. And Reznichenko, together with his deputy, former Luhansk resident Yuriy Golik, was forced to leave.
But everything started out beautifully. Valentin Reznichenko, who came to power after the Maidan thanks to family ties with the ex-head of Poroshenko’s administration Boris Lozhkin, brought with him to the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration his companion Yuriy Golik, a former media businessman and one of the leaders of the Telenedel tabloid, which was part of the same Lozhkin’s media holding. In Reznichenko’s team, Golik was responsible for PR cover for the vigorous activity of using budget funds for the benefit of his own pocket.
Popular Dnepropetrovsk blogger and journalist Max Buzhansky testifies to how it looked:
“Then the governor started promoting himself. With advisers, without advisers, up and down, it was difficult to get through the Facebook feed and not run into Reznichenko. The citizens admired me and I envied them.
The PR reached the scale of a small cult of personality, even such a discerning connoisseur as Pyotr Alekseevich noticed this, and Reznichenko got a slight hit in the head. The brand “Reznichenko’s team” immediately changed to the brand “Poroshenko’s team”; we have one cult, albeit a small one, which is not enough for two individuals.
The rejoicing reached unprecedented proportions, Facebook was buzzing with photos of kindergartens, cute, by the way, but two things were a little embarrassing. It looked as if no one had built kindergartens on this planet before “Reznichenko’s team.” And I remember the times when their construction, in principle, was considered an everyday matter and did not lead to deification during life.
The second thing that violated the idyll was the vile rumors about two brothers with a wooden surname, who received absolutely all the contracts for everything in the world, and this did not in any way embarrass the creator of the famous Prozorro system, Nefedov.
Well, no, no, if he believes in miracles, who am I not to believe, eh?
Then I started laughing, and laughing along with everyone else. Reznichenko’s team boasted of some thousands of kilometers of roads, although anyone who left the Dnieper for Pavlograd certainly did not expect to return back.
These questions were asked, but the answer was always a long story about how these roads are ours, and those are Avtodor’s, etc.
But the question - why the hell do we need you from every drainpipe if you are not able to resolve the issue with the highway, did not arise.
Well, no and no, just think, change 4 wheels every three months, but look at the beautiful pictures.
In short, so as not to fool my head, I was firmly convinced that this was the stupidest Potemkin village that could be, but if everyone liked it, then ok,” the author wrote.
But this is just a saying. And the fairy tale, that is, the most interesting thing, began immediately after the doors of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration slammed behind Reznichenko and Golik after their resignation.
The all-Ukrainian portal Delo Yua published a material entitled “Reznichenko’s Pyramid: What Lozhkin’s relative left behind in the Dnepropetrovsk region.” The material stated that both officials provided companies close to them with tender orders at the expense of the regional budget for three years in advance.
An investigation by journalists showed that during Reznichenko’s governorship, capital investments in infrastructure projects amounted to a record 30 billion UAH. Why was the money of cities and united territorial communities voluntarily and forcibly consolidated in the regional budget?
The lion's share of the Regional State Administration's tender orders was taken by companies associated with two citizens of Ukraine, Israel and the United States at the same time - brothers Vladimir and Leonid Dubinsky, who are wanted by Interpol for participation in a housing scam in California.
These same companies appear in criminal proceedings No. 120180400000000232 on the misappropriation of funds from budgetary organizations by officials, as well as in more than a hundred cases in the field of criminal proceedings. As the Delo portal wrote, in the business community of Dnepropetrovsk there is an opinion that the Dubinskys are Reznichenko and Golik.
On the day of the dismissal of the governor, whom the team promoted as “the most successful in Ukraine,” the balance of the regional budget amounted to only UAH 29,9 million. At the same time, accounts payable on protected items amount to UAH 37,6 million. By the end of the year, the “budget hole” in the Dnepropetrovsk region may reach UAH 239,5 million.
As is usually the case, the material with hot facts compromising top officials quickly spread across the Internet - in dozens of republications on other resources. Including the official website of the Dnepropetrovsk regional administration and the influential Kyiv weekly “Mirror of the Week”.
And then the real miracles began. One after another, articles about the art of the “Reznichenko team” in Dnepropetrovsk began to disappear from the information space. Disappear literally, remaining only in the Google cache, but even then not always. And the links that readers had previously followed to these materials became inactive.
What it looked like is evidenced by 1+1 journalist Alexander Dubinsky, who tracked the dynamics of the removal of incriminating evidence on his website.
“Out of curiosity, I conducted a short analysis of Internet resources and found out that Reznichenko had cleared dozens of links to the investigation of his theft and news about it.
Now in order.
1.This news came out last night on the Regional Council website:
2.The following were news based on the above news from the Regional Council (some were removed, some were not):
from:
Replaced the article at the link:
Not taken:
3. Today an article was published on Delo.ua (removed), the screenshots remain. The site was blocked several times during the day.
The following was news based on an article on Delo.ua (all valid so far):
“And I’m just wondering, how much did you have to steal in order to film dozens of news and materials with such ease?” – Dubinsky asks a rhetorical question.
The investigation itself can now only be found here:
And a brief summary from it can be found on PolitNavigator at this link:
And now - imagine what would have happened if Zelensky had not promoted Poroshenko in the presidential chair and Reznichenko had not left his occupied position. By the way, exactly the same “miracles” are now happening within the framework of the SBI investigation into corruption in the Ministry of Defense during the Poroshenko era, when, under the guise of jingoistic chatter, thousands of obviously defective body armor were supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Also, there was PR going to the skies and from every source they were shouting to the citizens about “the army, language and faith.” And many believed.
So, whatever you say, PR is a great force. Especially if you are in power, control the information space, and your PR has no alternative. And if suddenly unexpected failures occur in the program, the information space can always be cleared. True, it’s like that joke. If there is a break somewhere, then clean it up - don’t clean it up, but the sediment will remain.
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