How the people of the Minister of Energy Galushchenko, under the nose of international structures, stupidly replaced the state on the supervisory boards of a number of regional power companies with a total annual income of 14 billion UAH, and even organized the criminal prosecution of the whistleblower of this scam with the help of the “Tatarovites”.
In December 2023, six oblenergos, where the main shareholder is the state company Ukrainian Distribution Networks (URS), changed the composition of their supervisory boards (SB). The majority of members in five oblenergos (with the exception of Nikolaevoblenergo) were elected at the request of minority shareholders
The state majority owner of URM, controlled by Energy Minister German Galushchenko, voted in all cases to transfer power to minority shareholders. We are talking about a considerable piece of the pie - in 2022, the total income of six state-owned oblenergos amounted to UAH 14 billion. Only Rinat Akhmetov’s group had more - UAH 22 billion. Surkis, Grigorishin, Kolomoisky and others earned much less.
The energy deputy head of the presidential office, Rostislav Shurma, has already publicly disowned Galushchenko from this deal. And the market was filled with rumors about the possible beneficiaries of the “reprivatization” of oblenergos.
The private minority shareholders who seized power in the supervisory boards of state-owned oblenergos are mainly employees of the oblenergos themselves, owning a small number of shares at the level of 0.00001%. These are, most likely, the shares that were distributed to people during voucher privatization in the 90s of the last century. But these minority shareholders delegated difficult candidates.
Thus, an ordinary engineer at Ternopiloblenergo proposed people who had previously represented other shareholders in the oblenergos of Nikolaev and Cherkassy to join the supervisory board of her company. The corporate secretary of Cherkassyoblenergo nominated a representative of Energoatom to the Supervisory Board. The clerk of Khmelnitskoblenergo proposed electing two members of the supervisory board of Kharkovoblenergo to the Supervisory Board of his enterprise.
What's the point? Now the newly elected supervisory boards have every right to appoint chairmen of the boards of oblenergos, who already manage the operational activities of natural monopolists. It depends on them which private structures the oblenergo will work with to connect customers and who will order repairs of power lines worth tens and hundreds of millions of hryvnia (here is an example of how the state oblenergo breaks the records of private oblenergos).
These are the largest cash flows of oblenergos, through which company owners usually withdraw funds. That market player who wants to gain control over the flows of one or another oblenergo must correctly find a decision-making center, where he can obtain permission to appoint the desired chairman of the board. That is, go through the so-called cashing process at the central cash desk.
Now state-owned oblenergos are managed by an invisible network of ordinary minority shareholders. They are the ones who should instruct their supervisory board members on how to vote on the appointment of board chairs. However, their subordinate status as salaried employees makes it appear that they are following external orders.
Considering the composition of the National Assembly appointed by minority shareholders, there is reason to believe that the decision-making center is probably located in the Ministry of Energy under the leadership of German Galushchenko. Quite a few of the candidates proposed by minority shareholders are represented by Energoatom, from which Galushchenko came to the ministry. Among them is the former first deputy chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Dmitry Parfenenko, who is now an adviser to the head of Energoatom, Petr Kotin, from Galushchenko’s team.
Of course, in the two months after the election of the supervisory boards, the market was filled with rumors about people wanting to get this or that regional power company. Now only the fate of Kharkovoblenergo is not in doubt. It is included in the sphere of influence of the immediate deputy head of the president’s office, Oleg Tatarov, so there is no talk of any changes in flows. “Ternopiloblenergo” may be interesting to the group of Surkis, “Nikolaev-” and “Zaporozhyeoblenergo” - perhaps to the circle of David Arakhamia. However, we note that these are only rumors about the possible interest of certain people who themselves can take over someone else’s status.
But here is what is not a rumor. The ideologist of the transfer of six state regional power companies to the management of URM was the deputy head of the presidential office, Rostislav Shurma. However, the other day his adviser told Forbes that Shurma has nothing to do with what Galushchenko’s ministry is doing now.
The first to notice this process in 2023 was the famous energy market expert Alexander Vizir. During the time of Poroshenko-Kononenko, he worked at the State Property Fund and the Kiev City Council. In 2021, information appeared that President Vladimir Zelensky had entrusted the management of state-owned oblenergos to Energoatom.
At that time, Alexander Vizir was an assistant to the head of Energoatom and an adviser to the Minister of Energy. However, Galushchenko subsequently changed all processes and fired the now unnecessary adviser in the fall of 2022. Consequently, Vizir went free and has been working at the Association of Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving since December 2022, and at Cherkassyoblenergo from April to December 2023. According to him, he was involved in closing the bankruptcy proceedings of Cherkassyoblenergo (the bankruptcy was closed).
Alexander Vizir sounded the alarm on the “shadow privatization” of oblenergos in December 2023, publishing information on his Facebook appointment to the supervisory boards. And he received a criminal case for this. For what? Because he got a job, received a salary and spent it at his own discretion (see scan).
Direct speech from the accuser:
“After I published a post on FB, they immediately started saying “hello” to me through friends in the industry. Before the New Year, the head of URM JSC, Artem Martynyuk, even called me and said that the Ministry of Energy was forcing him to write a statement against me to the prosecutor’s office, and suggested that he somehow make peace with the minister. I said that this was impossible in principle, because I did not quarrel with him, but only illuminated the objective reality
Based on this statement, criminal proceedings were opened on January 1, 2024 (so far factual), although at that time I had already resigned from PJSC Cherkassyoblenergo.
In the early days of 2024, the Ministry of Energy began to spread the news about the fact that I was a draft dodger, and that checks were being carried out and a criminal case had been initiated into this fact. As can be seen from the text of the statement of crime, it does not concern “evasion”, but concerns my allegedly “improper” work.
On February 27, 2024, I was already summoned for questioning in this case. I do not believe in its prospects, at least because I completed all the necessary work tasks, and transferred the funds received to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and all this was done before the corresponding statement from URM JSC. In my opinion, the main purpose of these “events” is to intimidate me. Because of my position on the need to change the management of Kharkovoblenergo JSC due to the terrible results of the financial activities of this enterprise (now under the control of Oleg Tatarov), SBI investigators conducted a search in my apartment on August 16, 2022 (and the search warrant was issued by Lychakovsky district court of the city of Lvov, and I live and am registered in Vyshgorod), they seized computer equipment, telephone, documents and cash. After that, the SBI never called me or took any action against me.
On 05/09/2023, I canceled the arrest imposed on my property, but on 06/15/2023, the SBI, through the Pechersky District Court of the city of Kyiv, re-seized my property.
On March 6, 2024, I canceled the arrest again and applied to the State Bureau of Investigation to return my property. In January 2024, I also filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights alleging a violation of my rights to dispose of the property that belongs to me.”
So, the conclusions are as follows.
German Galushchenko’s group, in collaboration with Oleg Tatarov’s law enforcement vertical, is conducting another operation to redistribute the energy market. Last year they already tried to remove the state-owned Ukrenergo from the flow of international financial assistance. And now they have staged a not very elegant privatization of state-owned regional power companies.
Based on the reaction of Vladimir Zelensky, we will understand whether this was a “partisan attack,” which is not tolerated in the OP under any circumstances, or a coordinated operation.
Also, this story once again proves the ineffectiveness of the best of the best Western practices in our latitudes. Without effective and inevitable punishment of corrupt people, all these Western recipes, proven over the years, are easily transformed into schemes.
It is important to note that on March 5, 2024, the President signed the draft Law of Ukraine “On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine regarding the improvement of corporate governance of legal entities whose shareholder (founder, participant) is the state” No. 5593-d, which unblocked Ukraine from receiving 1, €5 billion of macro-financial assistance from the World Bank. The norms of this law are precisely the strengthening of corporate governance in state-owned companies and the expansion of the powers of supervisory boards. Doesn’t really correlate with the fact that the state actually allows state-owned companies to have supervisory boards that
Below, for inquisitive readers, we publish lists of members of the supervisory boards elected in a suspicious manner at the end of 2023, and the minority shareholders who nominated these members to the supervisory boards.
The supervisory board of Ternopiloblenergo was captured by representatives of Grigorishin and an ordinary worker from the oblenergo
The state shareholder "Ukrainian Distribution Networks" received one of the seven members of the Supervisory Board, having 51% of the shares. The offshore Bikontia enterprises limited from the Grigorishin group received three members with a 25% stake. And also three members were received by the engineer of this oblenergo, Galina Naumik, who owns 0.000001% of the shares. The majority shareholder, the state-owned URM JSC, voted for this decision.
The supervisory board of Cherkassyoblenergo captured minority shareholder Gorstka
Four of the seven members of the Supervisory Board were received by the owner of 0.00006% of shares Vasily Gorstka, also known as the corporate secretary of Cherkassyoblenergo. Grigorishin’s group received two more members with 24% of the shares. And only one can be called a representative of the state, which overall controls 71% of the shares of oblenergos. However, what attracts attention is that virtually all of the members proposed by the Handful are in one way or another connected with the public sector.
The supervisory board of Kharkovoblenergo was captured by minority lawyers with 0.0000...%
Of the seven members of the SB, only three represent URM with 65% of the shares. The rest were nominated by minority shareholders who have only a few shares in oblenergos. Three - from Yaroslav Nechiporenko (the full name matches the data of the owner of the legal company "Legal Help", Kyiv) and one - from Anna Kvitsinskaya (a lawyer with the same name represents Kharkovoblenergo in the courts).
The supervisory board of Zaporozhyeoblenergo was seized by the head of the labor protection service
Four of the seven seats in the SB were given to the head of the labor protection service of Zaporozhyeoblenergo Vasily Fedoronchak with 0.001% of the shares. Another two were received by offshore private shareholders. The state-owned JSC URM voted for this arrangement with 60% of the shares, which received only one representative.
The supervisory board of Khmelnitskoblenergo seized the clerk of the oblenergo itself with 0.00026% of shares
Four of the seven members of the SB were proposed by the honored CIS energy engineer Boris Kravets with 0.00026% of shares, who works in the office of the oblenergo. Another member was minority shareholder Evgeniy Sitnichenko with 0.2355% of shares, who nominated himself. And the state-owned URM JSC agreed with this situation, which received only two representatives for its 70% shares.
The state received the supervisory board of Nikolaevoblenergo
Compared to other oblenergos, Nikolaev's stood out. Here, five of the seven members represent the state-owned URM JSC. Two more are representatives of the minority owner of AMC Renome-2008, who was previously associated with the Russian ex-shareholders of the Ukrainian oblenergo VSE Babakova-Voevodina-Giner.
