2024 The third year of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The whole country is volunteering, collecting donations and trying to speed up victory. It would be strange if people who had been robbing the country for years, working with Yanukovych’s henchmen and defending Russian narratives did not start to get involved in good deeds.
One of these “philanthropists” turned out to be banker Vladimir Klimenko, who brought one of the first commercial banks in Ukraine, Ukrinbank, to bankruptcy - billions of depositors’ money was stuck there. His connection with pro-Russian figures was established through a charitable foundation and elections 12 years ago.
Vladimir Klimenko is a native of Lugansk. Known for being one of the founders of the bankrupt Ukrinbank. In 2015, the National Bank of Ukraine declared the bank insolvent, and in the summer of 2016, overnight the bank was renamed PJSC Ukrinkom and registered in Severodonetsk. To this day, the Deposit Guarantee Fund is trying to sue Klimenko, and he, in turn, does not stop trying to transfer the bank’s assets to the “right” pocket.
In addition to financial activities, Vladimir Klimenko also has a charitable foundation, “The Power of Unity.” From the Facebook page of the banker-benefactor, you can find out that he now helps the Armed Forces of Ukraine a lot, is involved in organizing concerts and publishing books in Ukrainian. Klimenko himself boasts of gratitude from the former Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny and from the Ministry of Defense. But his exemplary patriotism stands in stark contrast to the way he operated a decade ago and who his closest friends are.
In 2012, Luhansk resident Vladimir Klymenko ran for the Verkhovna Rada from the Ternopil region district. The local press wrote that he was blessed for nomination in an ideologically opposite region by the head of the Party of Regions and former head of the Lugansk region, Alexander Efremov. The same Efremov who, after the occupation of Donbass, was accused by the court of treason and financing terrorism.
Considerable administrative resources were devoted to Klimenko’s victory. In particular, it was actively promoted by representatives of the local government. The main message of his election campaign was the repair of roads in the Ternopil region. Officially, everything was carried out through the Galicia-Volyn charity foundation, created just before the elections. This is the same fund that is now called “The Power of Unity.”
While the election campaign continued, Klimenko and his foundation boasted that they were able to repair some roads. However, after he lost to Svoboda member Mikhail Golovko, it turned out that in fact he did not build any roads, but simply issued loans from his own Ukrinbank to a local highway company. Moreover, the local press wrote that even on those roads that began to be repaired, activity stopped immediately after election day.
“Before the elections, the road from our villages to the regional center began to be repaired. They laid about three kilometers of asphalt. Candidate Klymenko from the Galicia-Volyn Foundation came, said to vote for him and promised to lay a new one right up to the regional center by the end of the year. They even brought crushed stone to the village for that road. But in our villages he did not win a majority. Immediately after the elections, cars arrived and took away the rubble. Now it turns out that part of the road is there, and part, as it was, is a hole on top of a hole. More than one site has simply been raked away with rubble, but no asphalt has been laid,” a local resident said in a commentary to the press in 2012.
There is another key point in the election story. Ternopil Autodor was hired for Vladimir Klimenko’s PR campaign for a reason. Not only did Ukrinbank issue loans to him at high interest rates, but even the salaries of employees of the Ternopil Regional Road Transport State Enterprise were transferred to this bank.
It should be mentioned that during the time of the fugitive president, the head of Ukravtodor was Vladimir Demishkan. He is a multiple member of the Party of Regions, who moved to Russia in 2014 and has a Russian passport. Back in the “Regional” times, Demishkan was repeatedly suspected of embezzling funds from Ukravtodor, but after escaping to the Russian Federation, he was forgotten.
Although in vain, because he, for example, is one of the founders of the Kedr hunting club, which registered in Mezhyhirya, then occupied by Yanukovych.
Together with him, all outstanding regionals were members of the club - from Yuri Boyko to Sergei Kivalov. And another interesting person is Sergei Yevtushenkov. This is a Russian oligarch, closest to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
According to people's deputy of the seventh convocation Vladimir Boyko, Demishkan is the godfather of banker-benefactor Vladimir Klimenko. This explains why the main issue of the election campaign was the roads, which no one actually repaired.
The Galicia-Volyn Charitable Foundation remained in Ternopil until 2014, but after the 2012 elections it was virtually inactive. Later he moved to the center of Kyiv - to Institutskaya Street in the government quarter and changed his name to “The Power of Unity”.
More than ten years have passed since the 2012 elections. Yanukovych has not been president for a long time, Demishkan, using a Russian passport, settled in Moscow, Efremov, although he stayed in Ukraine, but after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, he also fled to Belokamennaya. At the same time, their comrade Vladimir Klimenko, who, it is possible, helped to withdraw funds from Ukrinbank in the interests of the named persons, feels great and even translated social networks into Ukrainian.
Klimenko receives gratitude from the military, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff for helping the Ukrainian army. At the same time, he is not at all embarrassed by the fact that his closest friends and even godfather chose the occupying country as their place of residence. By their choice, they made it clear that they support Putin’s policies hostile to Ukraine and are ready to help him in this by paying taxes in Russia.
