Andriy Kluyev: Hawk from the cage of Viktor Yanukovych Sergii Leshchenko UP _ Saturday, January 25, 2014, 20:23 And in the end they got married... This epic finale of many soap operas has been developed in Ukrainian politics. In the times of highest civil conflict and four years after the inauguration of Yanukovych, the dream of Andriy Kluyev came true – he had finally become the Head of the Presidential Administration. Or better to say, the Head of the Institution, which is more like the headquarters of the proceedings dictatorship in Ukraine. Kluyev, who had been waiting for this post for many years, was a no-alternative candidate for this position. The matter is that Kluyev was also appointed as the Chief of Staff of Yanukovychs election headquarters for 2015, so it should have been the main task for Kluyev to subordinate the hierarchy of regional and district administrations, in order to provide an effective electoral fraud with the desired results. The unexpected development of events in the country has caused problems and Kluyev stays ahead of something between the Gestapo and NKVD. So, Andriy Kluyev is the Head of the Presidential Administration, but in this case, you get “two for the price of one”. In fact, there is no Andriy without his younger brother, national deputy Serhiy. They are a unit and even live together in their mini-Mezhyhirya - an area of 17 hectares near the village Rudyka at Kyiv, which has been guarded by Berkut after several pickets of Maidan’s activists. Yanukovych is not going to make any concessions: the person who is responsible for the bloody crackdown of Maidan on November 30, 2013 hasn’t been deposed, moreover Kluyev has got the second most important position in the country. This shows that Yanukovych agrees absolutely with the events of that night, when students were crushed while he enjoyed hunting. The history of relations of these two persons began about twenty years ago. Kluyev met Yanukovych in the late 1994, when they were in different “weight groups”: the first one was the Deputy Chairman of the Oblast Council and engaged in business, and the second was the director of Donetskavtotrans. Then they switched the places - Yanukovych became the Governor of the region, and Kluyev became his deputy. Kluyev didn’t stop doing business at the same time. In the 1990s Kluyev nearly became a victim of an assassination attempt in Donetsk, afterwards increased his defensive profile and chose an armored Mercedes. Kluyev came into big-time Ukrainian politics in 2002 after being chosen as an MP from Donetsk Oblast in the national legislature. Some parliamentary correspondents remember huge Brioni logos on every button of his jacket and that impression of provincialism that it made. Kluyev is among that people who help Yanukovych to save his reputation. In 2008, when Yanukovych was in opposition and needed legal money for the first extension of his “Mezhyhirya”, the younger brother of Andriy Kluyev bought Yanukovych’s apartment for a fabulous $7 million. It was more than Lazarenko’s palace in California with ten bedrooms, after the purchase of which Lazarenko was put in prison probably for money laundering. Last year, Kluyev saved Yanukovych one more time - the younger brother became the official owner of Mezhyhirya. He bought that property for 20 million US Dollars. According to conservative estimates, Mezhyhirya is worth at least 200 million US Dollars. So, there is a unique situation today in Ukraine: the President of Ukraine now stays at a residence that belongs to the Head of his Administration or the brother of the Head of the Presidential Administration. At least, according to the documents. Russian producers of a Ukrainian blockbuster Kluyev’s appointment is in fact the integration of Viktor Medvedchuk, the author of the “war” conception, with Yanukovych`s team. Five years ago, Kluyev said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that he is a big pal with his no less odious predecessor. “Medvedchuk is my good friend; he is one of the best experts in Constitutional law. So indeed he consulted me in this area (during negotiations of creating coalition between Party of Regions and Yulia Tymoshenko),” Kluyev said. It is significant that he removed these details from the interview during verification. Despite the fact that in 2004, Kluyev was head of the Yanukovych`s “shadow headquarters”, he was communicating a lot with Orange team members. According to him, back then he heard the announcement on the radio that Yanukovych became president while he was with Yulia Tymoshenko. Kluyev always thought Yanukovych became president through fair elections: “There were no falsifications. Yanukovych won justly, in a big competitive fight. Of course, courts under pressure of people could make any decision about the first, the second or the fifth round”. At the same time, Kluyev was called guilty for large-scale falsifications, so-called “carousels”, “cookies”, and other schemes for accumulating votes. Kluyev also brought to Ukrainian politics the “titushka”. In 2004, a week before the President Elections, the Central Election Committee had to vote for opening 620 fake election affiliates in Russia, which were created to make uncontrolled falsification elections. As the opposition blocked the CEC meeting, the Party of Regions deputies were looking for ways to lure other deputies out of the room. As a result, athletes armed with hammers and bats attacked the demonstrators at the entrance to the CEC. As the investigation established after the Orange Revolution, Sergei Kliuev had been involved with that, but later he avoided punishment. It seems Kluyev has also been gaining people with mentality of “titushka”, – just listen to the dialogue between the author of these lines and Kluyev`s bodyguard. In spite of Kluyevs much integrated life in Austria, his world view is distorted by the Soviet past. He was asked in the same interview to Ukrainska Pravda, about his voting on the referendum for Independence of Ukraine in 1991. “I didn`t attend it at all. I wasn’t interested in politics much back then”, Kluyev admitted. Isn’t is strange: the biggest world empire is agonizing, there is a CCEC gathered in Moscow, but 27 years old Kliuev just doesn’t care. “I am proud to be a PhD in sciences in the USSR,” he also said then. Vienna legalizer of Kluyev`s money Since 2000, Austria has been the second motherland for Kluyev’s family. The current Ukrainian ambassador in Vienna is also Kluyev’s man. The family of Serhiy Kluyev`s brother has permission to live in Austria. They possess a number of assets in this country - Slav AG, which owns the Gasometer office center, as well as firms Activ Solar, which is building a solar power plant in Ukraine and CEE Clean Economic Energy, on which these plants were arranged. The Kluyevs are denying that they own the last two companies, but their objections do not stand up to scrutiny. The methods for the development of the business no doubt belonging to the Ukrainian officials. So, Kluyev doesn’t avoid using his power to assign public funds for personal benefit. UAH 200 million of municipal state aid went to Semiconductors Plant, which Kluyev’s company Activ Solar possesses, has been allocated by the Commission for the Coordination of Investment Projects, which at the time was headed personally by Kluyev. Also, Kluyev in fact monopolized the market for solar energy, which lobbied for an incredibly high green tariff. The State of Ukraine is obliged to buy electricity from his plants for a price eight times more expensive (!) than from others. More expensive than the same in Austria where the parent company is based. To build the business they took out loans from the state UKREXIMBANK using clearly illiquid collateral - equipment for solar power that which could not be realized in the event of the bankruptcy of the borrower. In addition, the import duties on the solar power were abolished. The most cynical thing is that even financial support from the European Commission under energy saving has been used to build the transmission lines that connected Kluyev’s power network - though Brussels generally stopped the program because of the misuse of funds. As Ukrainska Pravda recently discovered, the Kluyevs provided false information when they were filling form in the bank VorArlberg Landes-und Hypothekenbank AG. They contradicted Austrian law, refusing to identify themselves as politically important persons, although they should, because at that time they were deputies. As Ukrainska Pravda sources report, the Central Prosecution of Criminal Cases and Economic Corruption in Austria is inspects Kluyev’s activity after receiving a number of requests from Ukraine. Are Yanukovych and Kluyev partners? Other Donetsk tycoons, Serhiy Taruta and Vitaliy Haiduk, gave a detailed insight into the nature of ties connecting Viktor Yanukovych and Andriy Kluyev. In a cryptogram from the American Embassy in Kyiv dated September 2007 and disclosed on Wikileaks, Ambassador William Taylor reports to Washington on a meeting held with these two. In the course of a three-hour conversation, according to the Ambassador, Taruta and Haiduk, inter alia, told quite a lot about the Party of Regions leaders. Haiduk and Andriy Kluyev held Vice-Governors posts during Yanukovych’s governance over Donetsk oblast. Subsequently Kluyev engineered the shuffle, having made Yanukovych his business partner in order to obtain favors. Taruta does not know whether Yanukovych and Kluyev still are business partners. However, there exist special relationships between the two. Taruta considers that Kluyev is smart enough to handle the reforms. Unfortunately, he figured out very soon how to gain money through being on high posts and is now abusing his statesman’s powers to boost his wealth. For example, according to Mr. Taruta, Kluyev arranged smuggling of of chicken meat to Ukraine through the free trade zone (used to exist in Donetsk oblast during L. Kuchma’s Presidential tenure – UP). Taruta suggests, though he is not sure, that Yanukovych could have been in the poultry smuggling profit sharing scheme. The thesis that Kluyev and Yanukovych have joint business is further corroborated by the property registration scheme of the Austrian Activ Solar company developing solar power stations network to the benefit of Andriy Kluyev. This Vienna-based company is ultimately owned by a Liechtenstein trust, which for many years held Mezhyhirya mansion in its ultimate ownership. The Kluyevs themselves deny any connections to Activ Solar, despite factual evidence in addition to the documents – Serhiy Kluyev’s brother-in-law, Kaveh Ertefai, is the company’s CEO, the current Presidential Administration Chairman’s son Bohdan Kluyev and his Mexican wife Marina Castilla work in the company (or, at least, have been working till recently); the Vienna office of Activ Solar shares the box and phone number with Slav AG, another Austrian venture of the Kluyevs, while the Kyiv office is located right in the Kluyevs UkrPidshypnyk company office. Besides Austria and Russia, the Kluyevs have far-reaching interests in our state. The younger brother managed to become appointed as the chief of U.S. and Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group. Last year he had visited the United States twice, while the European Center for Modern Ukraine controlled by Kluyev paid USD 1.5 million to American lobby agents. Nevertheless, all the efforts to polish the brothers’ public image went to ruin. Even the best consultant would not hold up their positions in the USA. According to certain sources, visa sanctions will be applied against the Kluyevs – they will be forbidden to enter U.S. territory, with financial sanctions looming near. Along with the problems building up in Austria and the regular stalking of their mansions near Kyiv the brothers are rapidly losing their chances for a favorable future outside of Donetsk Oblast. Having appointed Andriy Kluyev the Chairman of presidential Administration, Yanukovych formed a solid bond between them. Now they would either skip out from the havoc together or hit bottom together, in pursuit of their unquenchable lust for wealth and setting up personal dictatorship. The original text is on Ukrainska Pravda at: pravda.ua/articles/2014/01/25/7011342/
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 13:54:54 +0000
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