Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov will likely be appointed ambassador to the UK, and the Ministry of Defense will be headed by the head of the State Property Fund, Rustem Umerov.
This was reported by the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
“Our ex-faction colleague, and now the head of the State Property Fund, Rustem Umerov, will be presented in place of the Minister of Defense. He recently completed a year in office. And please note, a year without a single scandal and with a record result for the State Property Fund,” Zheleznyak emphasized.
The rotation to the Ministry of Defense, according to the deputy, will take place next week.
“By dates: this is next week, that is, the first week of September,” he said.
As for the current Minister of Defense Alexei Reznikov, he, according to Zheleznyak, will be appointed ambassador, although this will not happen immediately after his dismissal from the Ministry of Defense.
“According to my information, Reznikov will leave the post of Minister of Defense and subsequently go as ambassador to the UK. If there are no more high-profile scandals before then. Rumors that there is something wrong with the agreman have not been confirmed,” the deputy noted.
According to Zheleznyak, on the morning of August 30, the embassies were warned about such a rotation.
“At least some,” he said.
Zheleznyak also added that Reznikov knew about his resignation already when he offered the bet to journalists.
“Mr. Minister knew about the imminent rotation and resignation before his famous bet proposal. Therefore, it didn’t turn out very sporting,” commented Zheleznyak.
Who will head the State Property Fund instead of Umerov, according to the deputy, has not yet been decided.
“Given how many assets and powers were transferred there, I hope it will not be an “eternal acting” again,” he suggested.
Umerov as the key to Rinat's afterlife
In a recent story about the poisoning of Roman Abramovich at negotiations in Kiev, where the oligarch, who has been perceived as “Putin’s wallet” for 20 years, acted as the latter’s confidant, our editors did not pay adequate attention to the second victim of this funny incident, which American intelligence attributed to the weather .
Like other media, we perceived Rustem Umerov as a participant in the Ukrainian negotiating group, representing the interests of the Crimean Tatar community. However, upon closer examination, this is obvious stupidity. It is obvious that at the current negotiations the parties clearly have no time for occupied Crimea. Much more utilitarian issues are being resolved.
Moreover, it is obvious that in order to poison Umerov in the company of Abramovich, the two had to actively communicate. What can unite them?
Having delved into the biography of the People's Deputy of Ukraine, we discovered that Rustem Eneverovich began his career in the third Ukrainian mobile operator lifecell (Astelit) a year before its official founding - in 2004. Astelit was a joint venture between Rinat Akhmetov and the Turkish mobile operator Turkcell. By the time lifecell was created, Akhmetov already had his own mobile service called DCC, which flourished within the Donetsk region. As a result, Akhmetov poured his mobile operator into the capital of Astelit.
Being one of the key managers of Astelit at the time of its organization, Umerov moved up the career ladder quite quickly (as for his first job) and by 2010 rose to the rank of marketing director of lifecell, after which he continued to work in some murky investment and financial companies, which often consisted of 2-3 employees, until 2019 when he became a people’s deputy. But that's not the point.
And the fact is that the paths of Umerov and Akhmetov officially crossed again in the same 2019 in a rather unexpected place. The oligarch and his former subordinate were united by the idea of building a mosque on the site of the Kyiv brewery.
However, first things first. 200 years ago there was a brewery in the area of Demeevskaya Square of the capital. In 1865, it was acquired by the German Johann Schulz, who turned it into a large-scale production complex producing excellent beer. Some of the buildings of the late 19th - early 20th centuries were built in the neo-Renaissance style and could become an adornment of modern Kyiv.
Let’s not talk for a long time about all the sad changes in the life of this enterprise and let’s move straight to independent Ukraine. In 1993, the plant was privatized. In 2000, control over the enterprise was gained by Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM and the brewery began to operate under the Donetsk “Sarmat” brand.
Already in 2003, Akhmetov decided to stop production and sell the enterprise. Even then, everyone considered the plant’s main feature to be its land plot.
It was not possible to find a buyer for the business, and in 2007, ownership of the Demeevsky brewery was transferred from the Sarmat brewing group to another SCM division, Esta Holding, which deals with Akhmetov’s real estate.
The formal end of the history of Kyiv Brewery No. 1 was the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court, which declared the enterprise bankrupt on October 12, 2009.
But a year ago, quite a scandal broke out around this facility. “On April 20, 2021, around noon, a group of unidentified persons began dismantling the pre-revolutionary building of the Karl Schultz Brewery complex at the address: Goloseevsky Ave., 8,” said Kyiv activists and filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor General.
And then something interesting turned out to be true. System Capital Management of Rinat Akhmetov released an official statement, which stated that “since 2019, the land plot and the buildings that are located on it do not belong to SCM or its businesses.
By personal decision of the final beneficiary of SCM Rinat Akhmetov, the property was donated to the Crimean Tatar community for the construction of the Kyiv Crimean Tatar cultural and educational center with a mosque. Accordingly, SCM does not bear any responsibility for what happens on the site.”
And a little later (in July 2021), Rustem Umerov (his older brother Aslan Omer Kyrymly is one of the founders of the Astem Foundation, and Rustem was the director of this charitable foundation until 2019) reported that “together with the Turkish The Republic is actively working on a project for the construction of a cultural and educational complex in the center of Kiev, which includes the Cathedral Mosque, a secondary school and a multidisciplinary cultural center.”
In fact, the situation with the transfer of property from Akhmetov to Umerov is even more interesting. The rights to LLC “Kompleks Oktyabrsky 40” (TOV “KOMPLEKS ZHOVTNEVYY 40”) were transferred from Rinat at that time to the future people’s deputy on December 17, 2018. That is, earlier than SCM talks about it.
The problem asks: how many people in Ukraine can boast that, albeit with additional conditions, our “undying languor” Rinat Akhmetov gave someone hectares of capital land? So far we have found one like this.
It seems to us that the connection with Akhmetov and the Turks much more adequately explains the presence of Rustem Umarov both as part of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations with the Russian Federation, and his poisoning together with Roma Abramovich. Especially if we remember that Akhmetov and Abramovich have a successfully operating business in Ukraine represented by the Southern Mining and Processing Plant. In 2021, YuGOK paid this couple almost 20 billion hryvnia in dividends.
Well, the most important thing. The story with Umerov and the Demeevsky brewery demonstrates that Rinat has not moved too far from the story with the Muslim Party of Ukraine, which he tried to promote in the late 90s.
An opportune moment will come and we will hear more about this “warrior of the Prophet” who has taken the path of true Jihad. After all, like any righteous person, the Gurias await him in paradise, who rest on precious carpets in luxurious, ever-green gardens - in their arms endless bliss awaits the faithful. Liliya Nikolaevna - no offense!
