Russian Butcher Artemenko

At the same time the protégé of Poroshenko, being responsible for honest media, is involved in the scheme on non-performing loan to an Austrian company. This is the company Artemenko is trying to bilk through courts controlled by the Presidential Administration.

Artemenko’s involvement in the meat business became known owing to his declarations for 2015, 2016 and 2017.

They shed light on the wife of the National Council’s head. She’s turned out to cooperate with LLC Berghaus whose owner is Russian businessman Vladimir Gusinsky (Russian former media tycoon, owner of the news web site NEWSru.com and former owner of TVi channel that was known in media as battlefield for investors). Gusinsky has strong ties with Yuriy Artemenko as the head of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting is his representative in Ukraine.

LLC Berghaus of Gusinsky and Artemenko is engaged in meat production and shares the same legal address with Trade House Rusanko and LLC Berkom that are located at 114 Sahaydaka Street in Kyiv. Aleksandr Altman is the owner of these firms and he is also a business-partner of the aforementioned individuals. In the past he held the post of Advisor of the Minister of Energy and was a scandalous investor of TVi. Today Mr. Altman is running business in meat industry (wholesale trade of meat and meat products).

If you spare some time to recall the story of Altman’s appearance at the channel TVi you wouldn’t but conclude that he had ties with the family of Yanukovych.

As part of Artemenko’s business with Russian media tycoon and Yanukovych’s pal, Poroshenko’s fighter for media transparency decides to bilk an Austrian company called Schaller GmbH.

According to the private correspondence that I have, Artemenko and Gusinsky were discussing the fate of assets of LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory. The Head of the national Council sent Gusinsky an information sheet. According to that sheet, LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory spent 630k EUR for production lines delivered by Schaller GmbH, Austria. And the meat packing factory paid only 146k EUR under the contract.

In 2009, LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory was subject to insolvency proceeding as the debt to the Austrian company amounting to 484k USD wasn’t paid off. The equipment was delivered to LLC Berghaus of Gusinsky and Artemenko by means of different financial operations.

In the view of Artemenko’s lawyer, Oleg, Myroshnychenko, there are two ways the already delivered equipment could be seized with no payment.

The first way with a favorable outcome is as follows: the Austrian company will get rejected in the court due to either lack of equipment in the original owner or the expiry of the period of limitations.

And the second way with a less favorable outcome will turn up if the Austrian company appeals to the current holder of the equipment, that is LLC Berghaus, and it will be necessary to prove the claim to have already been expired again.

All of the remaining options are rather unreliable regarding terms of contract, according to which LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory had no rights to alienate the property. As a result it would oblige both crooks, Gusinsky and Artemenko, pay the debt off.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that the guardian of media conscience is not against solving the aforementioned issue by means of pressing the judges applying to serious escort and using reliable ways of contacting judges of Zhytomyr Commercial Court.

I believe, Artemenko will be undertaking these steps with the help of Poroshenko’s Presidential Administration which controls the judicial brunch. Let me remind you, all of the actions taken by the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, are agreed between Mr. Artemenko and the Presidential Administration in advance.

Besides solving the issues on the equipment that was illegally seized from the Austrian company Schaller GmbH, partners Gusinsky and Altman are also involved in settling other issues with the help of Artemenko as well. That is, acquisition of real estate (a building) of LLC Bergkom per bidding.

In general, it appears that termination of LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory was thoroughly planned from the very beginning and now the incident with Austrian Schaller GmbH seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.

After all, Schaller GmbH and LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory have been litigating on the property issues since the beginning of 2009 and it all can be found in the Unified State Register of the Court Decisions (case No. 49/126-б).

In order to additionally secure the illegally seized property, Altman introduced a new player on the judicial battlefield. Its name was LLC Vial.

Reasons for this company to participate in the legal proceeding are set forth in the ruling of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine as of December, 6, 2012. It says that the Austrian equipment (that was shipped by Norbert Schaller GmbH to LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory under the contract No. 255/2007 dd. December 6, 2012) was recorded as an asset of the debtor and could be exchanged upon request of the first-ranking creditors of LLC Vial in terms of the reorganization plan. Total debt to LLC Vial was 17.8mln UAH.

As at July 2018, bankruptcy proceedings of LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory has been still in progress. And according to the creditor register, the debt amount of LLC Rusanovskyi Meat Packing Factory is 37.7mln UAH, 484k EUR and 1.6mln USD (the debt to Norbert Schaller GmbH is 484k EUR).

When doing this investigation, my interest was also stirred by income of Elena Artemenko, wife of the Head of the National Council. Regarding the declaration, her income was acquired from LLC Berghaus as payments and remunerations in terms of the civil law contract.

The thing is, according to the official documents, Elena Artemenko headed that company in the period from June 2014 till September 2017 and the income she received was paid to her namely as company’s head in the form of payroll drawn (paid off) to a taxpayer under the terms of the employment contract.

And all the while, Elena’s employment record has had to remain at Kostiantynivsky Plant of Metallurgical Equipment, Ltd that is directly relevant to Renat Ahmetov, owner of the channel Ukraine. For 8 years she has been assigned there as Chief Accountant receiving from 17k UAH to 35k UAH as annual salary. This information can also be found in her declaration as well.

Well, the distance between these two companies is 750km and Elena Artemenko resides in Kyiv.

So it becomes obvious that at least one of workplaces is faked, as the Ukrainian legislation does not provide having two employment records for one person at a time.

The need of Ahmetov in having such an employee is rather clear and you can track it in the following statement: the TV Channel Ukraine keeps on its functioning with no any consequences even though it’s been accused of broadcasting banned TV-series of Russian origin.

So why was Mr. Artemenko trying to conceal his wife’s involvement in the management of LLC Berghaus?

First, it was done to lessen rumors and controversy about the Head of the National Council known as the one repelling Russian informational aggression and his family working for the Russian businessman.

Second, appointment of Artemenko’s wife to a governing position in the company can be regarded as the position of an overseer.

Despite all of the efforts aimed at concealing this fact, the information about Elena Artemenko owning LLC Berghaus is accessible on some information websites.

As the head of the National Council concealed the information about his wife Elena Artemenko heading LLC Berghaus in the period from 2014 to 2017 by not indicating this fact in his declaration, according to the Article 50 of the Law ‘On Prevention of Corruption’ the National Agency has to check the declaration on misleading data specified, if any, based on the information obtained from individuals, legal entities, mass media and other sources.

So according to the article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, deliberate declaring of false information, the main character of my investigation namely Yuriy Artemenko is accused of, entails:

a fine of 2,500 to 3,000 times the individual income tax exemption limit or community works for a period from 150 to 240 hours or imprisonment for a term of up to two years with deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or carry out certain activity for a period of up to three years.

Furthermore, if in the course of inspection the National Agency finds out any evidence proving possible illegal enrichment of Head of the National Council Artemenko, he will be subject to:

imprisonment for a term of up to two years with deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or carry out certain activity of up to three years with confiscation of property

according to the article 368-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Well, it all is provided by law and when it comes to the gang code of honor it becomes even clearer: the Head of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine is a Kremlin agent and a real bilk.