Petrov Vladimir Vladimirovich

Official biography

One of the most famous and scandalous bloggers in Ukraine. He managed to get on the nerves of representatives of almost all political forces in the country.

“Black PR man”, ‘media killer’, ‘contract killer’, ‘blackmailer’, ‘provocateur’, ‘troll’, ‘hater’… That’s how 43-year-old Vladimir Vladimirovich Petrov is not called. He also presents himself as a TV presenter, producer, political consultant. And more recently, a politician. He insists that he is currently engaged exclusively in the production of TV series, educational programs and “intellectual products.”

Related parties

• OUR KRAI

Education

Volodymyr Petrov received his degree in mining engineering from Kryvyi Rih Technical University. He majored in mining engineering.

Family

Vladimir Petrov is married. His wife’s name is Tatiana. His daughter Masha was born in this marriage.

Dirt on him

Briefly about the scandals

First, a little history. Petrov’s name first became widely known in 2009, when he worked for presidential candidate Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whose page he maintained on Livejournal, where he got “burned”. Forgetting to change his account, Petrov replied to a user on behalf of the presidential candidate: “So I come up to your mom and piss in her mouth. Are you going to stand up for your mommy or shut the fuck up?” Not much has changed since then, and this is the style of public rhetoric that Volodymyr Petrov uses to this day.

As part of his work for Yatsenyuk, Petrov was involved in a sex scandal against three MPs from the Bitykivshchyna party, Serhiy Terokhin, Ruslan Bohdan and Viktor Ukolov, who were publicly accused of molesting children in the Artek camp. Petrov promoted this story in the most favorable way possible in his “live journal” under the pseudonym Lumpen. The situation became so loud that it came to polygraph examinations, and one of the defendants, Ukolov, eventually converted to the Christian faith and began singing in a church choir.

In 2010, Petrov, a novice black PR man, registered the B&D news agency, whose editor-in-chief was Alexey Durnev, a well-known blogger with whom Petrov has been conducting his dirty information campaigns ever since. The most high-profile of them was aimed at Petrov’s recent employer Arseniy Yatsenyuk, when Durnev, already a TV show host on the TET TV channel, in 2013 arranged provocations with homosexuals for the head of the Batkivshchyna faction in the Verkhovna Rada, and chased him with carrots. At that time, Petrov’s account also included the defamation of the Khortytsia brand and a black campaign against the head of the Shevchenkivskyi District Administration of Kyiv, Viktor Pylypyshyn.

Petrov, an unprincipled black PR man, does not care who he takes orders from or against. During the years of Yanukovych’s rule, he actively fulfilled the Party of Regions’ task of discrediting the opposition and independent media. While media workers were fighting for freedom of speech, the political strategist was opposing the Stop Censorship movement. He publicly promised to make every effort to ensure that the “journalistic party” that remained after the Revolution on Granite disappeared from Ukraine. Petrov’s campaign against the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia newspaper was particularly notable. He used both the usual fakes about corruption and the “Ass Man” who distributed the newspaper in Kyiv. Petrov claimed that he did not plan to destroy Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, but he could have: “If I were ordered to destroy Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, I would destroy it not in a month, not in two months, but in a year, I think this newspaper would cease to exist.”

In 2012, during the parliamentary elections, Petrov received an order from the odious Party of Regions member and Ukrainophobe Ihor Markov (suspected of crimes against national security and currently hiding in Russia), who was running in the 133rd district in Odesa. The task of Petrov and Durnev was to “destroy” his competitor Oleksiy Honcharenko with information, disrupt his election events, and register as technical candidates to “pull votes” from Honcharenko. “Our task is to destroy a person who lies,” Petrov stated directly at the time. As a result, Markov won the election, and Petrov and Durnev received awards for helping to bring a pro-Russian politician to the Rada.

Petrov reappeared in Odesa during the 2014 parliamentary elections in another district, 135, where another Party of Regions member, Serhiy Kivalov, was running for the Rada. In order to prevent his competitors from being elected, Petrov again registered as a technical candidate and involved his friends, who ran as Super Mario, Spider-Man, and Wolverine. Later, those who turned the election into a farce appeared in the scandalous 205th constituency in Chernihiv, where the leader of the UKROP party, Hennadiy Korban, and the BPP candidate, Serhiy Berezenko, were competing for the parliamentary mandate. Petrov’s task was to prevent Kolomoisky’s candidate from winning the election.

In May 2013, the opposition held a rally against Yanukovych called “Arise, Ukraine!”. Petrov counteracted it in his own way: an armored personnel carrier with carrots and rabbits drove to the protesters, and the vehicles provoked a fight, during which activists and journalists were attacked by hired youths, one of whom was Vadym Titushko, whose name later became nominal. Thus, the author of the “titushky” was Vladimir Petrov. At first, he admitted that it was he who had rented the APC for the rally, but then began to deny it when a criminal case for violating public order began to loom on the horizon.

How the authorities got Petrov on the hook

The criminal proceedings against Petrov were opened six months before Volodymyr Zelenskyy became President of Ukraine. Many facts indicate that since then, instead of being imprisoned for his activities, Vladimir Petrov has been put on the hook by the authorities for criminal prosecution and has continued to work quietly, but now for the Presidential Office.

First, one of Volodymyr Petrov’s lawyers is Kim Veremiychuk, a member of the team of the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Smirnov.

Secondly, Petrov’s friends and associates in the Tinder scandal worked in the Presidential Office: blogger Oleksandr Baraboshko was an assistant to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, and Volodymyr Koval was seen as an unofficial assistant to the Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President, Mykhailo Podoliak. Thus, Oleksandr Baraboshko’s phone number in the GetContact application is associated with the tags “OP” and “Kyrylo Tymoshenko’s assistant”.

Thirdly, Petrov’s proxy since 2019 is Maksym Chichkanov, to whom Petrov issued a power of attorney to represent his interests and who has been working in the apparatus of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine since 2020.

Fourthly, in 2021, the outspoken provocateur Petrov, together with his friend, ex-prosecutor from Luhansk region Serhiy Ivanov, was hired by the Rada TV channel, where they began to “wet” all factions except the ruling party’s faction on the air of the media, which should be equally distant from all political forces. For example, Petrov compared the OPFL faction to a garbage dump, ridiculed Petro Poroshenko, and discredited anti-corruption activists and media outlets that criticized the government. Parliamentarians could not stand it for long, and as a result, they managed to get the information terrorists fired from parliamentary TV.

Compromising facts about Vladimir Petrov

1. He headed the TV channel of “Donetsk” Prosecutor General Vasiliev

2. In 2009-2013, he actively opposed Tymoshenko and the united opposition

3. He studied with mentors from Russia

In addition to Granovsky, Petrov names Russian citizens Dmitry Kulikov and Timofey Sergeev (aka “Dima and Tim”) as his “teachers.” This duo has been working in Ukraine for many years. They helped Leonid Kuchma, Natalia Korolevska, and others in the elections. They almost presented themselves as philosophers and representatives of the Shchedrovytsky methodological school (“Shchedrovytians”). In fact, they provided not only advertising to the client, but also anti-advertising to his or her opponents.

In 2004, the same “Dima and Tim” produced smear campaigns against Yushchenko.

«I consider Kulikov to be my teacher, I consider Sergeev to be my teacher to some extent… I understand that this is a very unpopular thing now. I’ve known him since 2001 and we haven’t spoken since 2014, not even since 2013. The last time we saw Dmytro Kulikov was in 2013,» the political strategist said.

4. 4. He conducted joint projects with Chalenko and Uralov

Among Petrov’s priority contacts for a long time were such persons who are currently not allowed to enter Ukraine as propagandist and separatist Oleksandr Chalenko, who is wanted for collaboration with the DNR terrorist organization, and Ukrainophobe and political strategist Semen Uralov. With Chalenko, he “conjured” over the Odesa-based website Revizor, which he wanted to turn into a national resource, and with Uralov he had dealings during the elections in Odesa (see below).

5. Before the war, he ridiculed Ukrainian-speaking Kyivans, and now he calls the defense of the Motherland with arms and the deaths of Heroes “primitive”

Durnev once had the indiscretion to share on his social media how he warned a Ukrainian-speaking girl he knew that if she did not switch to Russian in everyday communication, “she would never find a wealthy husband.”

«I wrote this post after I noticed that almost no one in the highest business and political circles speaks Ukrainian. Consequently, all top managers, their deputies and other people with high net worth in the capital are Russian-speaking. I advised the visiting huntress for a «rich man» to speak Russian,» he explained.

6. “Went to knock down another candidate” in the single-seat elections in Odesa and Chernihiv. Helped Markov to obtain parliamentary immunity

In the fall of 2012, he was registered as a candidate for parliament in the same 130th constituency as Oleksii Honcharenko, the son of the then mayor of Odesa, Oleksii Kostusiev. This is the Kyivskyi district of the city.

For what purpose? «I was going to knock down another candidate,» Petrov said.

7. Rabinovich said that Vova «Meat» was allegedly preparing an assassination attempt on him

«Meat» is one of Petrov’s two aliases, as MP Vadym Rabinovych publicly called him.

8. Military Prosecutor’s Office: For years, it traded in personal data of officials and influential people

Prosecutors identified 11 people who were directly involved in this type of “business”. These are, in particular, Petrov and Baraboshko.

The documented “leakage” of data, which is available only to the parole office, helped to expose them.

The declaration

As a presidential candidate, Volodymyr Petrov filed an electronic declaration of his income in February 2019. He owns several land plots in Kyiv region (Bucha and Babintsi).

In Bucha, he has a residential house of two hundred and forty-six square meters. He purchased the property in 2011 for eight hundred thousand hryvnias. In Kyiv, Petrov has an apartment of seventy-two square meters. The PR specialist paid more than a million hryvnias for it in 2012.

His wife also owns a land plot and a garden house of one hundred and thirty-four square meters in the village of Babintsi.

As for movable property, Volodymyr Petrov declared a painting by Ukrainian artist Les Podervyansky “Musashi”. The painting cost the art connoisseur one hundred and sixty thousand hryvnias.

The Petrovs’ car fleet consists of three cars. Volodymyr drives a 2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo, as well as a rare 1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS. Tetiana drives a 2011 Cayenne. In total, the Petrovs paid three million seven hundred thousand hryvnias for the cars.

Volodymyr Petrov is the ultimate beneficiary of five companies: BIENDI LLC, Nashni Kitsy LLC, Black Wing Fundeshin LLC, Kolesot LLC, and Lumpen Production LLC.

“I don’t earn anything, I just spend”

The only value Vladimir Petrov pursues is money, and lots of it. “The more money I had, the more I wanted to brag. You felt like you were the most…,” he admitted in an interview with journalist and blogger Roman Skrypin.

Income from election work is always high — in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially if you are responsible for black PR and “destroying” opponents. And Petrov, in the same interview with Skrypin, does not hide the fact that he earns “black money.” That is why Petrov’s declarations, which he had to fill out when he was registered as a technical candidate either for deputy or for president, always reflected only a tiny part of his income.

For example, according to Petrov’s declaration for 2017, his official annual income was only 123,807 UAH, which at the time was equal to about 4,300 USD. In the following year, 2018, Petrov officially earned a little more — 157 thousand 96 UAH (about 5500 USD). But with this modest official income, Petrov demonstrates a luxurious lifestyle, to put it mildly.

The black PR man lives in a 246-square-meter house in Bucha at 50a Shevchenko Street. Since 2011, it has been registered in the name of Volodymyr Petrov under a purchase and sale agreement, but in 2020, apparently due to an open criminal case and to protect the property from potential confiscation, Petrov re-registered it in the name of his wife Tetiana.

In numerous interviews, Volodymyr Petrov has repeatedly boasted that he buys expensive things for thousands of dollars, and that he can afford a personal driver and expensive pleasures. In particular, he regularly travels around the world. In 2021 alone, Petrov made 13 trips to European countries — Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Iceland, Germany, and Turkey, where he spent the New Year’s holidays from December 26, 2021, to January 11, 2022.

All of this — expensive foreign cars and numerous trips around the world — for an official annual income of no more than $5,500. The tax service should have been interested in how much Petrov actually receives for his media killing activities long ago, but so far, apparently, it has not bothered him with questions about where the money came from and why taxes have not been paid to the budget.

“I don’t earn anything. I didn’t earn anything, I only spent,” Petrov says in a mocking tone in the interview, in which, among other things, he refuses to speak directly about the sources and amount of his income, trying to turn this conversation into a farce.

What threat does Vladimir Petrov pose to society?

Actually, most of what Vladimir Petrov does and says is a farce. A professional farce to make money and achieve his goals. In his interviews or broadcasts, he is never sincere, and it is often difficult for an ordinary viewer to understand what is true and what is deliberate fiction. Perhaps only he knows how much truth is in what Vladimir Petrov says. He plays with the audience, mocks and laughs at them, because he realizes that whatever he “feeds” the viewer, the viewer will “swallow”, which means that Petrov will make money on it again.

What he is doing is not only not journalism, it is classic propaganda, information terrorism, and media killing. All of Petrov’s broadcasts or posts on social media are not based on facts, but on emotions. Petrov’s goal is to make people hate this or that person or company, to stir up anger, to make them manifest it in their comments or even actions. Dry facts and truth do not help. But emotional attacks, foul language, embellished with speculation and fiction are another matter. This is exactly what propaganda has been doing in Russia for many years. And in Ukraine, this is what Vladimir Petrov is doing.

At the end of 2023, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting considered granting a digital broadcasting license to the Iceland TV channel. During the meeting, the chairman and members of the council accused the channel’s director, Pavlo Nemyruk, of a complete lack of fact-checking in the channel’s work, spreading false information and manipulations, dominance of value judgments, and continuous foul language. In particular, in the direction of the National Council itself: Petrov and Ivanov disseminated information that the National Council allegedly facilitated Viktor Medvedchuk’s TV channels, and that its members were allegedly hiding abroad after the start of the full-scale invasion.

Olha Hersiuk, the head of the National Council, pointed out to the head of Iceland that all this was false information, to which Nemyuk replied: “The main thing is the result,” meaning that all the attacks by Petrov and Ivanov were aimed at getting the TV channel a license.

“So this is not blackmail, or pressure, or an attempt to threaten?” Gerasimyuk was outraged. ”Do you think that when you curse someone, you achieve a result? Nemyuk replied: “Yes”. The head of the National Council emphasized that “Ukrainian society, traumatized by the war, needs support, and calls for hatred and discrimination and insults destroy it.

Isn’t this similar to what Petrov’s Joker Telegram channel is doing? The same thing: a bold attack with no stops and no limits, humiliation and insults using false information to achieve a result — getting money. Blackmail, pressure, and threats — Olga Gerasymiuk has aptly described in a few words everything that Petrov and his entourage do.

The existence of people like Vladimir Petrov is beneficial to politicians and the authorities. He is a good tool for dealing with competitors: like a dog that is told to “heel,” Petrov, due to his lack of moral qualities, is an ideal figure in this sense. But the existence of people like Petrov is very harmful to society. Because you never know what order he will receive and from whom he will start implementing tomorrow. A lot of people have already fallen victim to his fakes — just remember his recent attack on journalists Myroslava Barchuk, Vitaliy Portnikov, and Serhiy Rudenko and the Espresso TV channel, with the nonsense that they poisoned Viktor Yushchenko.

As Petrov himself stated, “I am capable of anything in my job except murder or sex with minors and men. What if he gets an order from the Russian FSB tomorrow? Or maybe he already has, as some journalists and publications suspect, citing his statements about the “civil war in Ukraine,” his invitations to pro-Russian propagandists to appear on his air, and his work for the Kremlin’s technical presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov in 2012.

Vladimir Petrov is an unprincipled man. After his scandalous dismissal from the state-run TV channel Rada, he admitted that he is a monster. “I am a person with transparent, almost non-existent moral boundaries… And just as small monsters live in people, so a person lives in me, in a monster. And when everyone is trying to control and educate their monsters, I am trying to educate and grow this person in me.”

He still manages to make money from information terrorism for only two reasons. The first is that people fall for him by watching his Iceland TV channel or reading his Joker telegram channel. The second is that the government does not stop or interfere with him because he works for the government. As soon as his audience realizes what Petrov is feeding them and why, and stops paying attention to him, he will have fewer customers. And, probably, then he will cease to be useful and interesting to the authorities. And then, finally, the criminal proceedings to discredit the family of civil servants will be brought to court. And perhaps others will be opened.