How oligarchs, businessmen and deputies contributed to the career of judge Marina Barsuk.
You have a large amount of cash, real estate in an elite suburb, your father is a former employee of the Prosecutor General’s Office and an assistant to a people’s deputy, and there were at least two oligarchs at your wedding. What kind of work can you do? That's right - a judge. This story is about Marina Barsuk, an employee of the Northern Economic Court of Appeal, whose family members became dollar millionaires.
Marina Barsuk bore the last name Didichenko until 2021, and she can be called one of the most famous judges in Ukraine. At a level no less than, say, the notorious head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court Pavel Vovk. She became a star thanks to her amenability and ability to make decisions in favor of the one who pays the most. Now the woman works in the Northern Economic Court of Appeal, although her career could and should have ended back in 2015.
At that time, journalists discovered audio recordings in which MP Sergei Alekseev discussed with his assistant the sum of thousands of dollars for Judge Didichenko for making the right decision in the case against Ukrsotsbank. In the end, the decision was made exactly one that was beneficial for the people's deputy, and the judge, despite the scandal, did not receive any punishment.
The tandem of judge Didichenko and deputy Alekseev continued in 2016, when the latter wanted to take over the Khimneftemashproekt building on Lesi Ukrainki Boulevard in Kyiv. We were talking about premises with a total area of 6049 square meters. m, owned by the company under a mortgage agreement. The legal dispute was considered by a panel from Marina Didichenko’s native Northern Economic Court of Appeal.
By an incredible coincidence, in 2019-2020, Marina Didichenko’s father, Anatoly Yakovenko, who worked for a long time in the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, was an assistant to the same people’s deputy Sergei Alekseev - on a paid basis.
But judge Marina Didichenko is known not only for her work with People’s Deputy Alekseev. The trial in the case of ownership of the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant on the part of the corporation of the oligarch Konstantin Zhevago brought her much greater fame. For a long time, four offshore companies associated with Igor Kolomoisky and Pavel Fuks tried to sue the mining and processing complex from Zhevago, and in 2021 Judge Didichenko ruled not in favor of the owner of the yacht with the unpleasant letter Z on the deck.
The comedy of the situation is that in 2021, Marina Didichenko married lawyer Viktor Barsuk, who worked for many years at the FCLEX law firm that served Zhevago. It turns out that the wife and husband seemed to be standing on opposite sides of the oligarch. At least at the beginning of married life.
What adds even more drama to the situation is that before Didichenko, Viktor Barsuk was married to MP from the Batkivshchyna party Anzhelika Labunskaya. She has been cooperating with the owner of the Ferrexpo corporation, Konstantin Zhevago, for more than 20 years. For a long time he was the main sponsor of Yulia Tymoshenko’s party.
It’s hard to say whether the divorce of Viktor Barsuk and Anzhelika Labunskaya contributed to his hatred of Zhevago. However, the lawyer’s new wife, judge Marina Didichenko, who took his last name, is handling cases that definitely do not benefit the oligarch. In particular, in 2021, sanctioned businessman Pavel Fuks, through the company FC Investohils Vesta, began buying up the debts of various enterprises. One of them turned out to be the famous tire manufacturer Rosava, whose facilities are located in Bila Tserkva, Kyiv region. “Rosava” belonged to Konstantin Zhevago, and it was Judge Marina, now Barsuk, who was on the panel of judges who considered the case of Fuchs against Zhevago.
By coincidence, Pavel Fuks was among the guests at the wedding of judge Marina Barsuk and lawyer Viktor Barsuk in 2021. As an “alaverda,” the couple were subsequently invited to Fuchs’ anniversary in the style of the Venetian carnival in Koncha-Zaspa.
Lawyer Viktor Barsuk is no less famous than his judge wife. During the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, he was part of the legal pool that served MP Alexander Granovsky. The people's deputy even used cars that belonged to people close to Badger. Granovsky then gained fame as the “supervisor” of the prosecutor’s office, so it is obvious that Viktor Barsuk had access to the prosecutor’s offices.
Let us remember that the father of Judge Marina at that time Didichenko, Anatoly Yakovenko, worked for many years in the Prosecutor General’s Office. His last position in 2019 was as Deputy Head of the Department - Head of the Department for Supervision of Compliance with Laws in Pre-trial Detention Centers. It was probably the prosecutor’s corridors that could have brought Marina Didichenko and Viktor Barsuk together.
Anatoly Yakovenko worked well in the Prosecutor General's Office, because during his work he acquired two houses in the elite Obukhovsky district and four apartments in Kyiv. Now he is engaged in fish farming and rents a large reservoir in the Kirovograd region. His wife and, accordingly, the mother of judge Marina Barsuk, Antonina Yakovenko, owned the Don Mare fish store in the capital’s Kharkov district for a long time. She also runs the company “Generous Summer Resident” and at the same time is the director of the private educational institution “Mother’s School” in Obolon in Kyiv.
In Marina Barsuk’s declaration, in addition to apartments, garages and numerous copyrights in the name of her husband Viktor Barsuk, you can see a brand new house with a total area of 222 square meters. We are talking about real estate in the cottage town "Konik". Closed area, access to the lake, landscape design - in a word, Kiev Beverly Hills. This house, along with the land, was purchased in November 2023, the second year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Marina Barsuk has two children from a previous relationship. The youngest of them, Vadim Didichenko, lives in London. On the LinkedIN social network, the judge’s son indicates that he received his education at Albemarle Independent College in London.
Tuition fees per year at this college are £27,000. The guy studied under the A-level program and chose three main subjects for himself - economics, mathematics and geography.
In 2023, the son of judge Marina Barsuk, Vadim Didichenko, briefly worked as a manager at Alpha Capital Education, and this year he managed to work at the Equity law firm, in which the judge’s husband, lawyer Viktor Barsuk, was a partner.
It would be useful to remember that it is in London that the sanctioned Russian-Ukrainian oligarch Pavel Fuks, with whom the Badgers are friends, now lives.
Judging by Marina Barsuk’s declaration, the family does not pay for their son’s accommodation in London out of their last resources. After all, the judge has almost half a million hryvnia and 45 thousand dollars in cash alone.
Her husband, lawyer Viktor Barsuk, is a dollar millionaire, because he keeps in cash 600,000 dollars, 500,000 euros, 350,000 Swiss francs and 2 million hryvnia. Law work, judging by the amounts indicated, is surprisingly profitable. Especially if you remember what clients Viktor Barsuk works with. According to media reports, at least since 2021 he has been working in the office of businessman Igor Kolomoisky.
The judge’s father-in-law, Nikolai Barsuk, added to the family’s fortune in 2023. He gave the spouses a certain item or property worth 20 million hryvnia.
In 2023, the information field was torn apart by shocking news about a record bribe in which the head of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Knyazev was caught. According to NABU and SAP, Knyazev, along with other judges, received $1.8 million from Konstantin Zhevago for making a decision in his favor. We are talking about the case regarding the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant, which was once considered by Judge Marina, then still Didichenko.
The history of connections between the Barsukov family of judges and lawyers is a vivid example of what the judicial system should not be. It is difficult to imagine that somewhere, for example, in London, a judge would invite to her wedding a businessman whose business she conducts in court. It is also difficult to understand how a Ukrainian lawyer and ex-husband of a people’s deputy could earn more than $1 million without having any business, but solely through the practice of law.
In February 2022, on the eve of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, judge Marina Barsuk appealed to the High Council of Justice with a statement about pressure and interference in her activities. The judge was outraged by numerous publications about her connections with oligarchs and her flamboyant lifestyle. Marina Barsuk complained that in media materials she was called a “pocket judge” and “a girlfriend of the oligarchs.” In her opinion, the statements “judges associated with the oligarch” and “... they (the judges) have a certain connection with certain persons interested in the outcome of the consideration of the case ...” are unfounded and do not contain references to evidence on the basis of which one could come to a conclusion such conclusions.
There is indeed more than enough evidence for this - the presence of oligarchs Pavel Fuks and Igor Kolomoisky at the judge-lawyer wedding. Consideration of cases in which they are interested parties. After all, my husband's job is for one of these oligarchs. With such baggage, can we expect that Marina Barsuk, as a judge, will not have a conflict of interest and will make decisions without bias? With a high degree of probability - no. Can the rise of the Badger family's fortunes be linked to who they befriend and serve? Probably yes.
And this situation should alert not only the High Council of Justice, but also law enforcement agencies, who caught Judge Knyazev taking a bribe, but for some reason turn a blind eye to the long-term cooperation of the Barsukov family with businessmen and oligarchs.
