Sergey Ivanov
Short biography
Sergey Ivanov (born August 26, 1976, Zimogorie) is a Ukrainian TV presenter, publicist, public figure, writer, blogger, defender of the Chernobyl TRO (Callsign “Nosach”).
Education and pre-media activity
1998 — graduated from the East Ukrainian University with a degree in law. Qualified as a lawyer.
1994-1995 — legal adviser at the Lugansk branch of Brokbusinessbank.
1998-2008 — worked in prosecutor and investigative positions in the Prosecutor’s Office of Lugansk region.
2008-2010 — Deputy Director of the Academy of Regional Development and Cooperation, Editor-in-Chief of the online publication “Eastern Option”.
2010 — January 22, 2014 — worked at the Main Department of the Ministry of Revenue and Duties in Luhansk region. I was dismissed because of my public support of Euromaidan and criticism of local and central authorities.
I am sure that my dismissal is related to the fact that in my publications (in my blog) I talk about people who actually run Luhansk region. These are Yefremov and his entire Komsomol vertical, which is rotten to the core, which does not accept any dissent and is planting the cult of the Party of Regions and the cult of Yanukovych’s personality in the region. After all, even at the New Year’s feast in the Main Directorate, everyone was forced to toast the president to the bottom. Naturally, I defiantly put down my glass and refused to do so.
From January to September 2014, he was the editor-in-chief of the online publication Vostochny Variant.
In May 2014, after the occupation of Luhansk, he was forced to move to Kyiv because of the threat to his life.
In July 2016, the militants of the so-called “LPR” put Sergei Ivanov on the wanted list.
Family.
Son Vladislav Ivanov is a guitarist in the rock band the feels.
Father — Ivanov Volodymyr Mykhailovych, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Honored Worker of Education of Ukraine
Mother — Ivanova Lyubov Egorovna
My family has never been rich or even just wealthy. Otherwise, I don’t think we would have experienced this displacement and all its problems. My parents live in an ordinary two-room apartment in a residential area of Kyiv.
In 2006, Serhiy Ivanov’s father was elected as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from the Party of Regions, as the Ivanovs were the closest business partners of Oleksandr Yefremov. Here is Ivanov Sr.’s page on the Verkhovna Rada website: http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/site2/p_deputat?d_id=8772&skl=6
Titles, ranks, regalia
Member of the Public Council on Lustration at the Ministry of Justice
Political and public activities
In June 2014, he became one of the co-founders of the Volya party. After an intra-party conflict before the parliamentary elections, I left the party and stopped my political activity.
I was personally invited to the party by Yehor Sobolev. I had just come from Dnipro and was looking around. I was superficially acquainted with Yegor from some broadcast. All I knew about him was that he used to work as a TV presenter on Channel 5 and pissed me off a little less than Skrypin. Yegor invited me to take part in a political project called “Volia,” and after thinking about it for a while and weighing the risks, I agreed because Yegor’s words about the party’s goals seemed convincing. Later, I met Vika Syumar, Yura Derevyanko, Serhiy Taran, Ola Halabala, Ira Suslova, and other party members. I had not known any of them before.
Since 2014, I have been a member of the Public Lustration Committee. I received official membership in the organization on June 5, 2015.
Never believe people who, having worked for at least a couple of years in the civil service, say that their conscience is as clean and pure as an antiseptic napkin. They are lying, and this rule knows no exceptions. There are no saints here, and there never were. I understand that the only possible reform of the prosecutor’s office is to completely destroy it and create a new one.
In October 2014, he was elected to the Public Council on Lustration at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. The official announcement of the composition of the Public Council took place on October 24, 2014.
In November 2014, he became a member of the Public Council for the Purification and Renewal of the Security Service of Ukraine.
In March 2018, he became a member of the Public Control Council of the State Bureau of Investigation.
In 2019, Ivanov was offered to run for the Verkhovna Rada from the Servant of the People party in the 215th constituency in Kyiv, but he rejected the idea.
I don’t see any point. First, my family was against it. Secondly, I am not satisfied with the financial support of MPs. I cannot afford it. I’m 43 years old and I still don’t have my own home. I mean, I have it, but it was arrested by orcs in Luhansk. I understand that this is a problem for many people, but I am not satisfied. By the way, in 2014, when I was offered to run for election, I also said that I could not afford civil service and deputy status. At that time, I was also asked to work for the SBU. There were different offers.
Media activity
From 2009 to 2014, he wrote an author’s column on the Vostochny Varyadnik website, the applecrysis blog on the Luhansk portal TOP and LiveJournal.
- From May 2014 to November 2015, he collaborated with Ukrayinska Pravda. The cooperation was terminated after Ivanov accused the owners of the resource of censorship.
- At the end of October 2014, he opened his blog on Facebook; as of November he had more than 10,000 subscribers; on his page he sometimes asks Borys Filatov to finance the promotion of the post.
- Since December 2014, he has been cooperating with the online resource Censor.net as a journalist and blogger. He writes articles for various media outlets, including Focus and LIGA.net.
- Since mid-May 2016, he has been participating in the broadcasts of Roman Skrypin’s author’s project — skrypin.ua and UMN. In early September 2016, he headed the Espresso TV portal.
From the beginning of October 2016 to July 2019, Ivanov, together with Natalia Moseychuk, hosted the talk show Right to Power on 1+1 TV channel.
I simply do not believe in television and I am not satisfied with the purely mechanical way of working on TV. Because you can’t just speak out. If you do speak out, and I like to speak out rather curtly, you have problems with PR, with the channel’s management, and so on.
- Since autumn 2019 he has been hosting the author’s program “Antipodes”. The broadcasts are aired on Iceland TV channel and YouTube channel ISLAND TV.
- In November 2020, the advisor to the head of the OPU Mikhail Podolyak reported that Ivanov works for the Office of the President of Ukraine Zelensky in a group of bloggers who in social networks spread information about positive trends in politics. Sergey Ivanov himself denied this. Prior to that, Ivanov criticized Podolyak for his connection with pro-Russian politician Lyovochkin and for harassing Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov.
- From December 15, 2021 to December 21, 2021, he worked as a talk show host on the Rada TV channel.ведущим ток-шоу на телеканале «Рада».
Links
Musaeva, Sevgil — new editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda
Sobolev, Yegor — people’s deputy, leader of the political party Volya
Nalyvaychenko, Valentyn Alexandrovich — head of SBU
Podolyak, Mykhaylo Podolyak — adviser to the OP
Scandals
Work in the prosecutor’s office
Ivanov has been accused of getting his position in the prosecutor’s office, and then in the Ministry of Revenue, through the patronage of his father, who was closely associated with the Party of Regions, was a deputy of the Lugansk regional council and a people’s deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the V convocation.
Ivanov’s critics also claim that his demotion in the prosecutor’s office and then his dismissal were related to his drinking. Ivanov himself does not deny that he drank heavily due to depression.
In the old Donbas tradition, I decided to treat it (depression) with alcohol in combination with sedatives and tranquilizers. We drank a lot and often, as if trying ourselves for strength. If I were asked to briefly characterize that period, I would do it with only three words: vidraza, depression, hangover.
At the same time, he claims that he resigned from the prosecutor’s office at his own request.
Money and only money interested Donetsk “Vikings”, and if you were ready to pay, you were allowed to do whatever you wanted. I was not ready for such an inverted commercialization. And at the beginning of 2008, having survived a series of scandals with a glamorous prosecutor, and having not laid hands on myself, I decided to leave.
As for Ivanov himself, who at the age of 27 headed the district prosecutor’s office of the regional center, I know of three other cases of appointment of a district prosecutor at such a young age. Thus, in December 2003, a cousin of Renat Kuzmin — 27-year-old Konstantin Kuzmin — was appointed prosecutor of Kalininsky district of Donetsk; in March 2012, the son of the chairman of the State Aviation Service of Ukraine Anatoliy Kolesnik — 26-year-old Serhiy Kolesnik — was appointed prosecutor of Sumy district; in 2012, 26-year-old Mykola Ulmer, a friend of Artem Pshonka, was appointed prosecutor of Boryspil inter-district prosecutor’s office.
The magazine “Focus” published arguments about the work in the prosecutor’s office of the current “popular blogger and publlicist” Serhiy Ivanov — “from 1998 to 2008 as an employee of the prosecutor’s office in Luhansk”.
In it, the glorious son of Lugansk region tells about himself — a simple guy from a labor family, after the institute he came to the prosecutor’s office as a trainee investigator. It’s a pity that Ivanov doesn’t tell what led to his dizzying career and why his supervisors didn’t trust him with any other work than transposing papers surrounded by degenerates.
The fact is that Sergey Vladimirovich Ivanov is the son of Vladimir Mikhailovich Ivanov, former deputy head of the department of organizational and party work of the Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk) regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The rapid prosecutorial career of the current “popular blogger and publicist” can be explained by the fact that his father in those years served as deputy and first deputy chairman of the Lugansk Regional State Administration (1995 — 2002), head of the Territorial Department of the State Judicial Administration in the Lugansk region (200 — 2004) and again as first deputy chairman of the Lugansk Regional State Administration (2004 — 2005).
Work on the TV channel “1+1”
Being the host of the program “Right to Vlada” on “1+1” Serhiy Ivanov, whom the party “Servant of the People” refused to nominate in the majority constituency in the last elections, extorted money from the management of the channel for loyalty to the owner of the channel Igor Kolomoisky. This became known from a source at the 1+1 channel.
“Earlier this year, Sergei Ivanov, apparently realizing what political stakes are at stake for Igor Kolomoisky, began to demand in ultimatum form a very large sum for loyalty and a seat in Parliament. The channel’s management and the oligarch himself did not go for extortion and blackmail, but simply kicked him out of his job,” commented a source familiar with the situation.
“I can’t afford deputyhood purely materially, as I don’t have enough savings or business to not depend on anyone for the next five years. The restrictions associated with the fulfillment of deputy powers will not allow me to earn extra money”
— wrote Sergei Ivanov, regularly posting photos of his trips to London on his Facebook page.
Although in fact he really dreamed of getting into Parliament and even began to write to his former “opponents” from the party “Servant of the People”, tearfully asking him to forgive him and go to an amicable settlement.
“Friends, I was told here that expelled from 1+1 former presenter of Pravo na vlada Serhiy Ivanov, in his interview at 14 minutes 30 seconds said that “collective Buzhansky represents unhealthy forces in the parliament”. You will laugh, but a month ago, dreaming of entering the parliament, Ivanov evaluated me a little differently. And for some reason he didn’t classify me as one of the unhealthy forces in the parliament. I hasten to assure you that unlike Mr. Ivanov, I have not changed my views, and I have remained exactly the same as I was a month, two, a year, three years ago. You see, it’s the “healthy forces” who tend to change their shoes on the fly. And the unhealthy do not do it, the reputation suffers.”,
— wrote MP Maxim Buzhansky, attaching a photo of the correspondence.
For many years, Serhiy Ivanov pretended to criticize Igor Kolomoisky, on whose channel he worked for about 3 years, but in reality he received money for criticizing his opponents and defending the oligarch.
In 2015, MP and well-known journalist Serhiy Leshchenko wrote that Serhiy Ivanov was part of Igor Kolomoisky’s party project Ukrop, for which he received money. Worked off this money Kolomoisky Sergey Ivanov, criticizing his enemies, including Sergei Leshchenko.
“But Sergei Ivanov should also be honest before the public and declare his ties with Kolomoisky. Just so that people know about the motives behind the publications of a former journalist who chose the path of a politician. You are not so stupid to believe the fairy tales that his name along with recognized associates of Kolomoisky accidentally appeared in a closed vyber chat of Deputy Dubinin? In the chat, which discusses the launch of Kolomoisky’s political satellites.”
— wrote Sergei Leshchenko.
Compromat
In the media there are many references to the work of Sergei Ivanov for UKROP.
Also, as the media wrote, Sergei Ivanov at the request of Igor Kolomoisky was the organizer and the main activist of the “Maidan” against the then Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema.
After he was kicked out of the channel “1+1” Sergei Ivanov continued to be engaged in posting provocative materials on blogs and social networks for money.
Serhiy Ivanov’s biography is also quite ambiguous — he is the son of a former “regionalist”, he used to be a prosecutor and abused alcohol in the workplace. He was fired from the prosecutor’s office, and later he was fired from the tax office as well. After that Ivanov became an “oppositionist”.
According to rumors that run in the media — from there Ivanov was removed for corrupt practices. And yet, the position from which he started his tax career — looks very bread-and-butter. Such a career rise is attributed to the connections of the father of the future blogger — Volodymyr Ivanov, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the fifth convocation from the Party of Regions. Volodymyr Ivanov in 2014 was the owner of a chain of supermarkets “Absolut” (they are still operating in the uncontrolled territory).
In November 2020, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said that Ivanov was part of a pool of bloggers working for the OPU and was spreading information about Zelensky’s positive policy trends together with others.
Prypustymo, Ivanov works with us, why can’t he do it? If you conducted a content analysis and found out that Ivanov is working with us, then why the question? Well, he is.
Career of a public opinion leader
As the media wrote, Sergei Ivanov started his career as a LOM (leader of public opinion) in May 2014. He spoke from radical Maidan and nationalist positions. His native Luhansk, in Ivanov’s opinion, deserved shelling — because there are many “uneducated people” in it.
The failed future politician is the author of many “fakes”: about “Luhansk air conditioner”, “tortured grandmother”, “Shariy’s sister” and others.
SBU and Nalyvaychenko
On November 14, 2014, the head of the SBU Valentin Nalyvaichenko offered blogger Sergey Ivanov a senior post in his department. He also made a similar offer to bloggers Denys Kazanskyy and Yaroslav Antonyak. About it Nalyvaychenko said on air of the talk show “Black Mirror”.
“We are ready to take young people who will not succumb to corruption. There are such people. They are Yaroslav Antonyak, Denis Kazansky, Sergey Ivanov, I think it’s time for them to work in the service in senior positions, so that the purification from the words went into action.”
— Nalyvaychenko said.
On his Facebook page, Ivanov wrote on the occasion:
“I am a blogger from Lugansk Sergei Ivanov among other activists received an attractive offer from the chairman of the SBU Nalyvaichenko to work for the good of the fatherland in the corrupt ranks of this organization. I declare my position. Today, on the threshold of lustration of this agency, its leadership is making attempts to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the public for its inactivity, and in some cases for direct treason against the Motherland during the war. The authorities have attracted journalist Nayem to their ranks in the same way. I am categorically against this proposal Mr. Nalyvaychenko and I strongly recommend you to leave this post as a person who failed to cope with the tasks at this difficult time.
I do not understand why the results of the inspection on the leadership and personnel of the USBU in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, who surrendered these regime facilities to the separatists without resistance, are not made public, why the ideological inspirers and sponsors of the separatists Yefremov Golenko Prystyuk Malysh Filipov Dobkin have not been detained until today, why the killers of the Heavenly Hundred have not been arrested and brought to justice, why Yanukovych and his OPG are at large, why your employees (40,000) are not fighting on the front lines of the war. )are not fighting on the front line, but “mopping up” in the deep rear, why Geletei was not arrested for the Ilovayskiy cauldron, and the generals of the AFU for the well-known facts of corruption, why conversion centers continue to work, and the size of bribes at customs has not changed. And there are many such reasons. So thank you for the invitation, and you advice as an officer-general go away and do not bring the matter to the people’s lustration”
On December 1, 2014, Ivanov wrote about his conversation with Nalyvaychenko: “I had a very informative conversation with the head of the SBU. Learned a lot of interesting and even unexpected. Soon on UP.”
Before that, Ivanov wrote about Nalyvaychenko on his page — “I watched a story on 1+1 with Valentin Nalyvaychenko and, which happens to me very rarely, I was satisfied with what I saw and heard. Really.”
Work and scandal Ivanov in the TV channel “Rada”
The state channel “Rada” paid 630 thousand hryvnias to a private company for the program of blogger Ivanov. As stated in the response of the State Enterprise “Parliamentary TV channel Rada” to the request of the publication, the costs for the creation of one issue of the program “In fact” amounted to 52 thousand hryvnia, in particular:
- 16 thousand hryvnias were spent on the work of the “creative team” and writing the script;
- 10 thousand — for the work of the editorial team and directing;
- 17 thousand hryvnias for the organization of production;
- 7 thousand was spent on additional studio staff;
- 2.5 thousand hryvnias were spent on providing hosts and actors.
In 2021, 12 such episodes were filmed at a total cost of 630 thousand hryvnias. Now on the YouTube channel Rada TV channel you can find only one issue of this program for January 11, 2022, its host is Serhiy Ivanom, the guest is journalist Serhiy Shcherbina.
As noted by the publication “Ukrainian News”, the contract between the SE “Parliamentary TV channel Rada” and LLC “Kinokit”, which directly carries out the production of programs, was concluded on December 28, 2021, and the broadcasting of the program “In fact” began two weeks earlier — on December 15, even before the conclusion of the contract. In addition, the SE “Parliamentary TV channel Rada” reported that Sergei Ivanov is not a full-time employee of the channel.
Despite this, as reported by “Media Detector”, Sergei Ivanov is also the host of live broadcasts on the channel “Rada”. It is noted that Ivanov’s guest is political technologist Vladimir Petrov, previously suspended from participation in the airwaves of the channel because of the scandal with the comparison of the actions of German ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel with “pig behavior”. The structure of the issue, hosted by Vladimir Petrov, was built in such a way that the video with animals changed the video with Angela Merkel, and the host accompanied the change of the video with a verbal transition from the behavior of animals to the actions of the ex-chancellor.
“Ivanov’s Humor
TV presenter Ivanov called some journalists FSB agents and got into a scandal
The article “Babel” conducted an investigation, where it wrote in detail about another jeers from Sergei Ivanov.
On September 7, 2023, the YouTube channel “Iceland” (ISLND TV) released a new video — “Hetmantsev: Russian agent in the Verkhovna Rada. Sergei Ivanov’s Investigation.” In it, blogger and former host of the TV channel “1+1” Ivanov accuses the head of the parliamentary Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, “servant of the people” Daniil Hetmantsev in various sins. The main one is his acquaintance and work with former regionalist and suspected of state treason Volodymyr Sivkovych.
The DBI suspects Sivkovych of espionage in favor of Russia. He is also accused of violently dispersing the student Maidan in 2013. When he worked as a people’s deputy, Getmantsev was his assistant. In 2014, Sivkovych fled Ukraine along with other associates of Viktor Yanukovych. In addition to Hetmantsev, Ivanov accuses several other prominent people in his story — Eurosolidarity MP Mykola Knyazhytskyy, journalists Vitaliy Portnikov, Miroslava Barchuk and Serhiy Rudenko. They appear in the scheme called “FSB agents — participants in the poisoning of Yushchenko”. Earlier “Babel” wrote about Ivanov’s movie about the former mayor of Irpen Vladimir Karplyuk, which had all the signs of political jeans. We wanted to break and this investigation, but we could not — the material is based on assumptions, not facts. Instead, Ivanov uses the non-journalistic term “denunciatory signs” in the story. Why the blogger calls certain people “FSB agents” is also unclear, the video has no explanation. Miroslava Barchuk called the story, which has gained almost a quarter of a million views on YouTube, “an order of one representative of the authorities against another”, and Ivanov — “an information killer”. And instead of explaining why his “investigation” should not be trusted, we show what an “investigation” about Sergei Ivanov might look like if it were done by Sergei Ivanov. And not a real journalist. The style and logic of Sergei Ivanov’s “investigations” have been preserved.
Media column
If we trace the stages of Sergei Ivanov’s life path, we can conclude that he is flesh and flesh of the comuno-oligarchic political elite of Donbass, which brought Yanukovych to power, plundered the country and brought it to poverty, and now, having betrayed national interests, finances separatism and terrorism in the hope of maintaining monopoly power in the region.
So Sergei Ivanov is the son of Vladimir Ivanov, who has a capital of 70 million dollars. Vladimir Ivanov made all this fortune working as deputy chairman of the Lugansk regional state administration, head of the judicial administration of the Lugansk region, people’s deputy of Ukraine, adviser to the governor, deputy head of the regional organization of the Party of Regions. The story about how Volodymyr Ivanov together with Oleksandr Yefremov “sawed off” the state money allocated by President Kuchma to the Luhanskleginvest SE to create jobs for miners who were being laid off from the liquidated mines received a lot of publicity in the media, but the valiant law enforcement agencies successfully hushed up the case.
No less interesting is the fact that Ivanov was the permanent head of the election campaigns of the Party of Regions and Viktor Yanukovych in Lugansk region for several years, i.e. he directly organized bribery of voters, fraud in the work of election commissions, put pressure on dissenters and so on. These and other methods of work of the Party of Regions in Luhansk region were repeatedly reported by the mass media. The popular wisdom that the apple does not roll far from the tree is vividly illustrated by the life path of Vladimir Ivanov’s son Sergey.
So having graduated from the police university Sergey Ivanov immediately got to work in the prosecutor’s office, and not as an ordinary employee, but as a prosecutor of one of the districts of Lugansk, which is simply unrealistic without the “inclusion” of daddy’s connections. Being a member of the “clan” he was untouchable, even in spite of his professional unsuitability he was not fired, but was transferred to the deputy prosecutor of the largest district in Ukraine — Zhovtnevyi. After that he worked in the tax office. From which he was fired in December 2013, allegedly for criticizing the authorities.
It is hard to believe that without the consent of the all-powerful owner of the region, Oleksandr Yefremov, the leadership of the tax office would dare to dismiss his man, with the wording “for corruption”. But the wording of the dismissal was exactly that, and the local media began to actively promote the information that Sergei Ivanov suffered for his civic position, exposing corruption in the government.
However, if in fact Sergei Ivanov was fired from the tax office for political reasons, why, having prosecutorial experience, he did not file a complaint about the violation of his rights and did not punish those responsible, but instead became an active participant of the Lugansk Euromaidan, “actively” fighting with his father and his patron. At the same time, he did not forget to bring some discord in the ranks of Maidan residents after the victory, making accusations against one or the other defender of the new government.
Since the end of 2013, Sergei Ivanov has not worked anywhere and does not receive an official salary, but he is not short of money. He devotes all his time and energy to public activities, actively penetrating into the environment of Euromaidan activists and gaining their support.
It is alarming that very often in his blog Sergei Ivanov publishes information about the events in Lugansk region long before the ATO press center reports about it, despite the fact that the press center has a whole team of journalists who receive information directly from the heads of the ATO units, and blogger Ivanov learns everything independently through his channels.
These channels that feed information to Sergei Ivanov are separatist leaders, who thus promote Ivanov among the journalistic community, making him a prominent and influential person. This was confirmed by Ivanov himself, when in his video blog he posted a recording of his conversation with his friend Sergey Korsunsky, one of the commanders of the army of the south-east. Education, an apartment in the center, a prestigious car and much more, Sergei Ivanov received on the money that his father “earned” together with Alexander Efremov, and now fiercely fights with him and his friends on the Internet, but this is as they say a game of publicity.