Portnov Andrey Vladimirovich
Biography.
Andriy Portnov was born in Luhansk (then Voroshilovgrad) in 1973. He finished school there and joined the army in 1991.
Related parties
Family.
The MP’s mother, Svitlana Mykhailivna, worked in Soviet trade. His father, Volodymyr Mykhailovych, was a driver.
Portnov is married, his wife’s name is Tetiana, she works as a private notary. The couple has already raised 2 adult children — a son born in 1993 and a daughter born in 1994.
Education.
Andriy Portnov graduated from high school in 1990, after which he entered a military school in Leningrad, where he failed the first year. The politician himself says that he left on his own, although some sources claim that he was kicked out.
He went on to study at the part-time law school of the East Ukrainian State University, graduating in 1999.
Career and business
While still studying at the university, Portnov started working at the Luhansk-based company Jurlit Ltd. Then, for less than 2 years, he worked as a lawyer at Luhansk Oil Depot. Indeed, it was quite difficult, if not impossible, to get a lawyer’s position without a degree at that time.
After searching for information, one can find sources claiming that Andrii Portnov was associated with the Luhansk organized crime group of Valerii Dobroslavskyi, a well-known criminal authority in the region in the 90s.
This conclusion can be drawn from the confession of Ihor Gomeniuk, who was an associate of Dobroslavsky. Quite a few people from their group entered politics: the mayor (1994-97) and governor of Luhansk (2005) Oleksiy Danilov, Oleh Titamir (in 2010-2014, the leader of the regional organization Front of Changes), Hryhoriy Prygeba (one of the leaders of the Luhansk Euromaidan, in 2016, together with the Opposition Bloc, he carried out a raider seizure of power in the mayor’s office of Sievierodonetsk), the Serpokrylov brothers (leaders of the regional organizations PORA-PRP and UDAR).
In 1996, Portnov already headed the law firm Ukrinformpravo, which he said he had created himself. A year later, Portnov moved to Kyiv, where he was almost immediately appointed deputy head of the department at the State Commission on Securities and Stock Market (SCSSM). He was a part-time student in his 4th year.
Portnov learned a lot there, and some sources claim that he was placed there by Tymoshenko and Lazarenko’s people, who also cooperated with Dobroslavsky. More precisely, with his people.
Andriy Portnov was directly involved in the war for Privatbank that took place in 2001. Our politician was on the side of Privat, and on the other side was Oleksiy Romashko, who at that time was already considered the head of the State Commission on Securities and Stock Market.
Romashko even launched an internal investigation against Portnov, but failed to bring it to an end. Oleksiy was killed in his own front door in 2001. Of course, the first suspicion of the police fell on Portnov, but they failed to prove his involvement. But just a month later, he left the SEC and opened his own company, Portnov and Partners.
In 2003, he was returned to the SEC as the first deputy executive secretary. From July 2004 to July 2005, he was a member of the State Commission.
In 2006, he finally became a member of the Parliament, which opened up new opportunities for him. Remember, we said that he might have been set up by Tymoshenko’s people. It was in her party that he became an MP of the 5th convocation.
In 2010, Portnoy became the deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine under Serhiy Lovochkin.
Then he was laid off and in 2011 he was transferred to Viktor Yanukovych as an advisor to the president.
He worked there until 2013, after which he was immediately appointed an advisor to the head of state. Lovochkin, who made the appointment, said that from then on Portnov would be in charge of the entire range of reforms in both law enforcement and justice.
On January 24, 2014, President Yanukovych issued a decree dismissing Portnov from his position as presidential adviser and appointing him first deputy head of the Presidential Administration.
On February 26, Oleksandr Turchynov dismissed Portnov from this position.
Compromising material
During his career and political activities, he was involved in several scandals.
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- In 2006, he defended Secretary of State Oleksandr Zinchenko in court as part of the corruption scandal with Petro Poroshenko;
- Andriy Portnov was involved in the scandalous laws of January 16, 2014;
- In 2014, the EU imposed sanctions against Portnov and blocked his bank accounts;
- in 2015, a criminal case was opened against him under Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine;
- in 2016, he appealed the decision of the EU Council;
- On July 31, 2019, it was reported that the SBU was investigating Portnov for treason.
Vakarchuk’s accusations
Most recently, Portnov accused MP and singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk of concealing income from the state. According to Portnov, the singer hid his earnings through offshore companies and a Swiss bank in order to avoid paying taxes on his foreign concerts.
Media ownership
In August 2018, the father of MP Yevhen Muraiev, Volodymyr Muraiev, transferred 100% of the shares of the NewsOne TV channel to Portnov for a period of 3 years.
However, 2 months later, the owner of the corporate rights of the TV channel became a member of the Opposition Bloc MP Taras Kozak, an associate of Russian President Viktor Medvedchuk’s godfather.
Portnov then stated that he had initiated the termination of the agreement on the management of the channel. He also said that he would remain in contact with the channel’s management and continue its “judicial and international protection as long as it remains in opposition to the government.”
Why did the students of the Kyiv National University protest against Portnov: a student reported threats for participating in the Shevchenko rally?
In 2009, Portnov became a professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the Law Faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. In 2010, he became the head of the Department of Constitutional Law.
Portnov worked at the university until 2014, when he was fired. The reason was that he was working part-time, so Portnov was fired and a full-time employee was hired for the position.
However, in June 2019, the rector of the Kyiv National University reinstated Portnov as a professor without competition. So on September 1, Portnov is to start working.
The news that the odious Portnov would become a professor again did not sit well with the students of KNU. Therefore, they announced a protest action for June 20 at 18:30 near the red building of the university. The organizers of the action called on students, staff, teachers and alumni of the KNU to “defend the honor and reputation of their university.”
Raider #3 in Ukraine
The media has been actively discussing the involvement of Andriy Portnov, or rather his company Corporate Technologies, in raiding. According to Andriy Portnov, he founded this company with the participation of Kolomoisky’s Privatbank.
Mr. Portnov denies this information: “I am a member of the Ukrainian parliament. The Corporate Technologies company was my partner in the lawyer business before I was elected to the parliament. This company has had a different specialization for several years. Corporate Technologies was engaged in the protection of shareholders’ rights in court and out of court, and provided legal support for investment business, depending on the task at hand. The company’s lawyers restored the rights of both large and small shareholders. It was a long time ago“ (”Profile”, March 5, 2007).
Andriy Portnov is also associated with Bondarchuk, Kizin, Chibisov and Partners. This firm was once called Portnov, Kizin and Partners. This group is often referred to as “Kizino”. The schemes used by the company, according to some media, allow them to take over businesses.
«Zhytomyrski Lasoshchia.
“Nashi Hroshi found documents showing that in August-September 2010, the confectionery factory had a loan of almost $20 million. It was registered with BTA Bank. It was also through this bank that money was transferred to Etenko’s individual entrepreneur and other transactions were conducted.
Let’s talk briefly about BTA Bank and its importance in this scheme. In the 2000s, one of its owners, Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov, was accused of stealing tens of millions of dollars. In 2009, it was reported that the chief lawyer of Yulia Tymoshenko’s team, Andriy Portnov, had taken on the Ablyazov case. Unofficially, he owned 7% of the bank’s shares. Officially, Vadym Fesenko, co-founder of the Portnov and Partners law firm, became the vice president of BTA Bank. Nine months after this news, Portnov’s people appear on Zhytomyr Delicacies.
Both Boyko’s side and Leshchynskyi’s side confirm that in 2010, one of Ihor Boyko’s trustees was Ivan Hrantzev. In 2000, Hrantzev and Portnov worked at the State Commission on Securities and Stock Market, Portnov headed the corporate finance department, and Hrantzev headed the department for registration of corporate issues. Hrantzev, along with Andriy Portnov and Oleksiy Temnenko, were the founders of the NGO Investment Ukraine, Hrantzev was Portnov’s partner in the law firm Portnov and Partners, and they were also co-founders of the Audit Firm Yakovlev and Partners.
During the conflict in 2010, Andriy Martyniuk represented the interests of Ihor Boyko’s structures in courts. Today, he and Ivan Hrantzev are co-founders of the Corporate Technologies law firm. The Corporate Technologies law firm, where Hrantzev also worked, is a well-known company that used to belong to Andriy Portnov.
Oleksiy Temnenko became the deputy head of the legal department and later acting chairman of the board of Zhytomyrski Lasoshchy CJSC, as he owned a share in the authorized capital of Agrocombank and had been Hrantzev’s business partner for many years. Later, when Zhytomyrski Lasoschi CJSC ceased to exist and the confectionery factory was replaced by a new legal entity, ZhL OJSC, Oleksii Temnenko owned 5.6% of the factory’s authorized capital. When Delta was being ousted from Zhytomyrski Lasoshchy, the lawsuits were also sent to the courts from Temnenko’s address in Kyiv.
Interestingly, the people to whose accounts money was transferred from the Zhytomyr factory, allegedly for consulting services, sometimes turned out to be Temnenko’s neighbors. For example, Iryna Cherniy, who received UAH 2 million 067 thousand for allegedly consulting services, and this amount exactly matched the price of the apartments of Tetiana Etenko and Yevhen Doroshenko, is Temnenko’s neighbor in a house on Predslavynska Street in Kyiv. Iryna Viktorivna was listed in apartment 9. Natalia Ivanivna Temnenko was registered at 18, and Oleksii Ivanovych Temnenko, when he registered a number of companies in the nineties, indicated this address as his home address. In 2009-2010, Iryna Cherniy was listed as the head of Temnenko’s company Kyivski Pirozhky.
Portnov denies any involvement in the seizure of the Zhytomyr factory. However, the co-owner of Delta Capital S.A. Yuriy Leshchynsky doubts that it was possible to seize the factory without the consent of Bankova during Yanukovych’s rule: “At that time, under Yanukovych’s rule, the entire judicial structure was subordinated to the manual control of the presidential administration. Therefore, the decisions made there, I am sure, were made with the consent of the people in the presidential office.”
It was not possible to find out who organized the seizure of the factory. According to a post on the factory’s website on May 25, the factory’s work was blocked. Petro Poroshenko promised to personally investigate the situation.
Murder of Prosecutor Shuba
In 2009, the Prosecutor General’s Office considered as a working version the version of the contract murder of Prosecutor Volodymyr Shuba of Dnipropetrovs’k region, who allegedly managed to find evidence of the involvement of a number of officials in the seizure of the Ozerka market, including the name of Andriy Portnov. This was reported by the Ukraina Moloda newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is a friend of President Viktor Yushchenko, Mykhailo Doroshenko.
“The raider attack on Ozerka is associated with the interests of the Privat group, where Andriy Portnov was once employed. As it turned out, this case was actively investigated by Volodymyr Shuba, who died in October 2008 under unclear circumstances,” the article adds.
According to a source in law enforcement, “the Prosecutor General’s Office is considering as a working version the version of the contract killing of the prosecutor, who intended to make public the loud facts and give the case a boost.”
“At present, the officials involved in the case are using all possible tools to deflect suspicion from themselves — unprecedented pressure is being exerted on law enforcement officers, and investigation materials are disappearing,” said an official of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“It seems that someone covered their tracks with Shuba’s murder. We now know that the attacks on the Ozerka market were carried out by Kapitonov’s group. And Portnov was the curator, customer and strategist of the high-profile attack,” he added.
Telephone terrorism
In October 2007, socialist Valeriy Kochetov said that he had allegedly received a phone call from Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc member Andriy Portnov threatening him with death if he did not drop the case of election violations. “I personally received a call on my cell phone from a person who called himself Andriy Portnov and said that if I withdraw from the trial, I will not have a heart attack and my car will not be damaged,” Kochetov said. Andriy Portnov denies that such a conversation took place.
Threats to an employee
At the end of 2004, law enforcement agencies received a complaint from Oksana Sakhnatska, head of the legal department of the State Commission on Securities and Stock Market. In it, she accused Portnov of threatening to kill her right in the SEC’s office. In January 2005, the prosecutor of Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, Mykhailo Ivanets, opened a criminal case over the incident. Portnov, in his turn, stated that there were no threats on his part. At the same time, Andrey Vladimirovich claims that the case against him was a “paid-for” case. In its decision of August 1, 2005, the Holosiivskyi Court of Kyiv found that the prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry had not collected any data that would indicate either the fact of threats or the existence of real reasons to fear them.
Illegal privatization
On May 19, 2008, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine opened a criminal case against Andriy Portnov on the grounds of attempted illegal privatization under Article 233(1) and Article 365(2) of the Criminal Code.
The Romashko and Sakhnatsky cases
According to some media reports, Portnov, together with its chairman Oleh Mozgov and commission member Oleksiy Romashko, decided whether or not to give consent to the registration of securities issues of joint stock companies. In October 2001, Romashko was murdered. Portnov, according to the newspaper “Ukraina Krymska”, was allegedly even a defendant in this case. Also according to Ukraina Krymna, Portnov was a defendant in a criminal case of attempted murder of the wife of Oleksandr Sakhnatskyi, head of the investigation department of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine, who testified against him in court (the so-called Sakhnatska case).
An official who does not travel
The West has already prepared proscribed lists of Ukrainian officials who will be denied entry to Europe and the United States. This should be followed by blocking the accounts of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs. “Glavkom has published a list of officials to be sanctioned, which in itself means that they are becoming an increasingly real threat.
He is the direct author of the so-called judicial reform initiated in 2010 by Yanukovych, which made Ukrainian courts totally dependent on the government. Andriy Portnov, along with Serhiy Lovochkin, is a communicator who transmits illegal instructions to the courts.
Fleeing the country
On February 22, after the change of government, he left the territory of Ukraine and moved to Russia. He lives with his family in a rented apartment in Moscow, where he set up the AP Group law firm.
On February 28, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine demanded that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine detain Andriy Portnov within 10 days as a suspect in the mass murders of activists in the center of Kyiv on February 18-22 at Euromaidan.
On March 6, 2014, the European Union and Canada announced that Portnov was on the list of high-ranking Ukrainian officials subject to financial sanctions. Portnov himself states that he has no financial assets abroad.
On May 25, 2014, the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation granted Andrey Portnov a temporary residence permit for a period of 3 years.
On August 15, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv partially satisfied Portnov’s claim against the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine for the protection of his honor, dignity and business reputation, ruling that the information about his alleged involvement in the mass killings of activists on the Maidan during the winter events of 2014 was untrue.
At the end of December 2014, Andriy Portnov, who was living in Moscow at the time, announced his plans to return to Ukraine in 2015 due to the absence of legal charges against him. He also intends to recover funds from his frozen accounts in the EU. In the fall, the European Union received a written notification that the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies had no legal proceedings against the Klyuyev brothers and Andriy Portnov on embezzlement charges.
Portnov’s threats
Portnov, a former deputy head of the Yanukovych-era presidential administration, is threatening a DBR investigator for investigating crimes on Maidan. According to Censor.NET, Portnov wrote about this in a .telegram.
He noted:
“The State Bureau of Investigation announced a suspicion to the investigator of the Maidan era. He is suspected of bringing innocent heroes of the revolution to justice and interfering with rallies. They are preparing a preventive measure against him. Dear SBI investigators, have you been confused or drugged? Maybe it’s time for you to get a little preventive care? Don’t you have anything to do? Maybe you have already dealt with Poroshenko and his criminal organization? Or do you want so badly to please the wandering cattle of activists, to whom you have been trying so hard to adapt lately? We will definitely protect this police officer, nothing will happen to him, we will put a restraint on your head, and we strongly recommend that those who signed this go on patrol duty at a difficult time for the country. If any of you come up with a similar shameful pro-Maidan initiative again, we will deal with you in a slightly different mode.”
Portnov and Privat: a blood relationship?
It is no coincidence that Portnov’s repeated dismissal from the SSMSC in July 2005 is timed to coincide with the scandal surrounding the failed attempt to “re-privatize” the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant, controlled by Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law Pinchuk, in favor of the Privat Group. It is no accident that this “re-privatization” was planned in favor of the Privat group, and later A. Portnov, who had never thought about big politics, suddenly found himself in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc’s election list in the 66th place.
And this is despite the fact that Portnov’s name is associated by various media outlets with his participation in the “detachment” of the Southern Mining and Processing Plant from Yulia Volodymyrivna’s structures in favor of Privat. Whoever remembers the old days is out of the picture? But “Privat” does not forget the services rendered to him…
It is equally important that the parliamentary mandate reliably protects its holder from criminal prosecution. We have already written above about the fact that A. Portnov is involved in outright crime, including murder. Forced communication with the investigation, interrogations have become an integral part of his life. As well as searches in his offices: the latter were conducted during the tenure of Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko.
It is not surprising that in December 2007, Portnov voted in favor of the resignation of the “orange” Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko in the parliament and even advocated bringing him to criminal responsibility — in particular, for “illegal conduct of operational and investigative activities in relation to MPs”). The reason for this was Lutsenko’s statement that one of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc MPs was involved in the high-profile murder of Colonel Erokhin…
The NABU investigated Portnov’s receipt of payments worth UAH 26 million between July 2011 and December 31, 2013. On March 6, 2019, the criminal proceedings were closed due to the decriminalization of the article on illegal enrichment.
In February 2018, it became known that the ARC Prosecutor’s Office was checking Portnov’s involvement in the preparation of a document of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea, which appeared in the first days of the occupation of the peninsula in 2014. Censor.NET reported that on March 1, 2014, Ukrainian intelligence recorded a telephone conversation between Russian Presidential Adviser Sergei Glazyev and a person who called himself “Vladimir Andreevich,” in which Glazyev said that Portnov was preparing a draft resolution of the Supreme Council of the ARC at the beginning of the Russian occupation in 2014. According to Glazyev, it was necessary to adopt this document “to make it clear that not all of Ukraine wants to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union.”
In March 2018, it was reported that the Security Service of Ukraine had opened proceedings against Portnov under the article “high treason.” The former deputy head of the Presidential Administration said he had filed a lawsuit against the SBU.
Schemes journalists report pressure on the editorial office by Portnov
Journalists of the Schemes program, a joint project of Radio Liberty and UA:Pershyi TV channel, reported pressure on the editorial office by Andriy Portnov, the former deputy head of the Presidential Administration under Viktor Yanukovych, who late the night before addressed Mykhailo Tkach and the program on his Telegram channel, publishing the personal data of the crew’s driver. “Schemes” was preparing a journalistic investigation into Portnov.
The journalists said that Portnov had published his full passport details and home address, license plates, as well as data indicating that the program driver’s place of residence was being monitored.
Portnov’s message with the driver’s data, which is protected by the law of Ukraine, was posted on his Telegram channel by Oleksandr Dubinsky, a member of the Servant of the People faction.
Skhemy journalists and lawyers claim that Portnov directly violated Ukrainian law under several articles at once. The editorial board considers Portnov’s publication of the personal data of the program’s driver as direct pressure on the Skhemy team.
Pechersk court orders Portnov to pay almost UAH 7 million in damages
The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv upheld the claim of Andriy Portnov, a former adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, for the protection of his honor and dignity and decided to recover almost UAH 7 million from the state budget in his favor.
This was reported by the lawyer and sister of Andriy Portnov, Olena Isayevska, according to Slidstvo Info.
The court hearing was held on August 2, presided over by Judge Serhiy Vovk.
Portnov is demanding compensation of almost UAH 7 million from the Ministry of Justice and the State Treasury for the alleged damage to his reputation.
At the August 2 hearing, his lawyer stated that the Canadian government had imposed sanctions against her client based on a letter from the prosecutor’s office dated March 2014, which contained false information about Portnov’s involvement in violations of the law.
«According to the statement of claim, the then Deputy Prosecutors General and the Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada, in their correspondence with the Canadian government, called him a ‘suspect’, which allegedly put him on the country’s sanctions list. Although, according to Portnov, at that time he was not a suspect in any proceedings,» the journalists say.
At the same time, Isayevska said that Portnov was a suspect, but not for long.
Representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the State Treasury Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Foreign Ministry called the claims groundless and asked to dismiss the lawsuit.
In his Telegram channel, Portnov said that he was not going to collect the money from the Ukrainian budget, but planned to wait for the State Treasury to collect the money from Deputy Prosecutor General Angela Stryzhevska, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko.
In June, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice twice requested the recusal of Judge Serhiy Vovk, who ruled in Portnov’s favor, citing possible bias and the existence of criminal proceedings against the judge, but both requests were rejected.
Andriy Portnov was an adviser to Viktor Yanukovych in 2011-2014, deputy head of the Yanukovych Administration, and a member of the National Bank of Ukraine. In 2005-2010, he was the chief lawyer of Yulia Tymoshenko’s team.
In March 2018, it became known that the prosecutor’s office opened a case on the fact of Portnov’s possible crime. The proceedings were initiated under the article “high treason”.
In turn, the former first deputy head of the Presidential Administration said he would sue the SBU, which had alleged his treason.
Already in March 2019, the court found unreliable the information that the prosecutor’s office had opened and the SBU would investigate the case against Portnov under the article of treason.
On May 19, 2019, Andriy Portnov, former deputy chief of staff to fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych, announced his return to Ukraine.
After that, he began filing statements with the State Bureau of Investigation accusing the fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko of committing crimes.
How Andriy Portnov, a suspected FSB agent, “solves” Maidan cases as Yanukovych’s “handler”.
In recent days, relatives and friends of those killed in the winter of 2013-2014 have been actively demanding that the killers of the Heavenly Hundred be punished. The sixth anniversary of Euromaidan is approaching, in honor of which the public has launched a flash mob “Don’t be angry #MaidanCases”. Activists are holding pickets on Bankova Street, demanding that the investigation into the mass crimes committed on Maidan be continued. To do this, they want to transfer the most effective employees of the Special Investigations Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office to the State Bureau of Investigation.
At the same time, an influential friend of the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Portnov, demands to imprison the former head of this department, Serhiy Horbatiuk, to grant amnesty to the “black company of Berkut” (led by Dmytro Sadovnyk, who fled to Moscow) and to initiate criminal proceedings against the participants of the Revolution of Dignity. For the murder of police officers and the coup d’état.
- Seven million “for moral injury” and a picture with his cronies on Bankova Street
Although Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to deny any connection with the former deputy head of Viktor Yanukovych’s administration, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe. After all, this character, to put it in a language he understands, is becoming more and more vicious every day.
There are a number of points that contradict the Zelenskyy Office’s desire to downplay Portnov’s influence on the judiciary and law enforcement. A recent ruling by Judge Serhiy Vovk, who has been repeatedly tried to be dismissed for his unjust decisions, is a case in point.
Vovk ruled that the Canadian government’s sanctions against Portnov and his forced stay abroad caused him moral and material damage of UAH 6.8 million. And this amount, according to Vovk, should be paid to Portnov by Ukrainian taxpayers. This is a scandalous decision of the Pechersk District Court:
The clearly illegal decision of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has already been appealed, and if the PGO does not appeal it to the Supreme Court, the state will finance the “wants” of Yanukovych’s accomplice.
Perhaps Vovk’s decision made Portnov dizzy? Or are his anti-Maidan friends (like Shariy) right, who hinted that Portnov was involved in the “ascension to the throne” of Volodymyr Zelenskyi?
From a post on the President’s official website on November 18, we learn that the odious lawyer has signed up to become a journalist, whose “journalistic activity” is hindered by “colleagues” from Radio Liberty. This is the official reaction to Portnov’s “attack” on the Schemes program. “Earlier, Rishala had made the personal data of the crew’s driver publicly available and threatened to continue publishing information about journalists protected by law:
On November 18, Portnov, the former deputy head of Yanukovych’s presidential administration, posted a happy photo from Bankova Street, where his former aide works as the head of the Presidential Office. Zooming in on this “picture,” one can see three cronies: Portnov himself, A. Bohdan, and his deputy in Ze’s office, Smirnov’s namesake, former lawyer Lukash.
But let us remind the «servants of the people» who Mr. Portnov is. This is the same Viktor Yanukovych’s henchman who in February 2014 called the protesters terrorists and was among the co-authors of the idea of the «Shchegolev ATO»: In the Yanukovych era, he was known only as the «court watchdog» who manually administered fake justice.
But it should also be remembered that before working for Yanukovych, this sinister figure had experience providing legal support to oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. People immersed in the topic claim that Portnov assisted him in his raider cases (Kolomoisky clarified: «He has been helping me legally for 20 years»).
Portnov employed the future head of the Ze office, Andriy Bohdan, who had been his assistant for a year. But it’s noteworthy how easily Portnov sold out Tymoshenko and defected to her sworn opponent Yanukovych.
Portnov is also the author of the “magnificent Criminal Procedure Code” that violates the rights of victims. We should thank him for the fact that about 80% of detentions in our country are inevitably carried out with violations. This gives toothy defense lawyers the opportunity to wrest justice away from anyone with a fat wallet. To give you an idea of what we are talking about, listen to one of the investigators: “If we have identified a serial killer not immediately, but, say, six months later, we have no right to detain him without a court order, and we cannot go to court for permission to detain him if he is not hiding. In general, we have no right to go to court for a preventive measure before we are notified of a suspicion. First, we have to summon the maniac to our office to serve him with a notice of suspicion. Then we have to file a motion for a preventive measure with the court. And only then, no later than 3 hours before the consideration of the motion for a preventive measure, we have to hand him a copy of the motion and ask him to come to court.”
One of the posters said that every executioner will face retribution. They «threatened» the murderers of Maidan participants with a «people’s court».
Relatives and friends of the victims believe that the investigation of the Maidan cases is doomed with the current approach. The unfinished cases will be merged, and the investigated ones will not be brought to fruition if after November 20 all the “Maidan cases” are transferred to SBI investigators who are not familiar with them. In addition, the picketers are convinced that Andriy Portnov is illegally influencing the SBI’s decisions.
Therefore, for several days in a row, they came to Bankova Street with portraits of the Heavenly Hundred heroes and posters: “Don’t betray Maidan”, ‘Where is the promised justice?’, ‘Maidan cases are a test of dignity’ and ”20.11.19 is the deadline. What’s next?”.
ASSISTANCE TO “NOVOROSSIYA” AND “INTERROGATION OF US OFFICIALS”
While in exile, Portnov began to publicly defend people with a pro-Russian position and/or those who promote Russian narratives. For example, in September 2017, he defended the so-called journalist Dmytro Vasylets, who was sentenced to nine years for aiding Russian terrorists. According to the verdict, he created services on the Internet to broadcast the propaganda channel Novorossiya TV. In early 2018, an appellate court overturned the verdict.
Portnov also helped the editor-in-chief of the Strana website, Igor Guzhva, who was accused of extortion by the prosecutor’s office, move to Vienna.
He also helped pro-Russian blogger Anatoliy Shariy, who used Portnov’s lawyers to file lawsuits against Poroshenko. “If Anatoliy Shariy wants to come to Ukraine, our legal team will certainly help him,” Portnov said.
And on May 19, 2019, after a long exile, he flew to Kyiv himself. Upon arrival, he was provided with police protection. Portnov stated that his goal was to bring to justice Poroshenko, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Oleksiy Filatov, who was in charge of the judiciary under Poroshenko, as well as MPs from the People’s Front Maksym Burbak and Serhiy Pashynsky.
The latter actively supported the other side of the shareholders in the conflict over Zhytomyr Delicacies. For more than three years, Portnov’s lawyer Maryna Parinova (who appears in the Kazbek’s correspondence) had been handling the case of Viacheslav Khimikus, who was shot by Pashynskyi. After the case was closed in 2017, Portnov’s lawyers succeeded in reopening it through the courts. In 2019, Pashynskyi even spent several months in custody, but in March 2021, the court acquitted him.
Investigative actions of the SBI
Portnov “by some miracle” learned about the investigative actions of the SBI before anyone else. He knew in advance about the arrest of former MP S. Pashynskyi. He also knew about any summons for questioning of the defendants in high-profile cases from P. Poroshenko’s entourage. This led to suspicions that SBI employees were illegally cooperating with Portnov. The source of the leak was never identified, and Mr. Truba denied the leak, which is why many believe that he was the source. And recently, Andrii Portnov handed over 2 volumes of the criminal case file to Truba, which he had unknown how he got.
Close ties
- Viktor Yanukovych, former President of Ukraine;
- Kolomoisky Ihor Valeriyovych, oligarch, member of the supervisory boards of Privatbank, the oil refinery Naftochimik Prykarpattya, and the oil company Ukrnafta;
- Korban Gennadiy Olehovych, representative of the Privat group, the No. 2 raider in Ukraine;
- Viktor Medvedchuk, former head of the Leonid Kuchma Administration, godfather of Vladimir Putin and Svetlana Medvedeva;
- Lukash Olena Leonidivna, deputy head of Yanukovych’s administration;
- Svyatoslav Oliynyk, chairman of the Ukraine of the Future party, member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the sixth convocation;
- Pysarenko Valeriy Volodymyrovych, Member of Parliament of Ukraine of the VI convocation.
- The Agency for Education Quality Assurance found plagiarism in Portnov’s work
The Ethics Committee of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (NAQA) claims to have found another piece of academic plagiarism in the doctoral dissertation of Andriy Portnov, former deputy head of the Presidential Administration under Yanukovych. The head of the National Agency, Serhiy Kvit, said this in a commentary to Radio Liberty.
Kvit said that the committee would recommend that the National Agency add this fragment to the previous decision of the committee of March 12 on the presence of plagiarism in Portnov’s work.
“We have added two fragments. We consider one of them to be academic plagiarism — a reflection of a published text by another author without attribution. And another fragment, which we consider not a violation of academic integrity, but a lack of academic quality — the same piece of text by the author himself was found in the introduction and conclusions,” he said.
NAZIAVO also provided a comparative table that allegedly shows a new example of Portnov’s borrowing without citing a source: on pages 50 and 51 of Portnov’s dissertation, there are text fragments that coincide with fragments of the publication “Constitutional (State) Law of Foreign Countries” on pages 780 and 781, respectively.
The decision to recommend that the new fragment be reviewed by the National Agency was made on June 9 at a committee meeting. Portnov was invited to the meeting, Kvit said, but the former deputy head of the Presidential Administration’s lawyers came there. According to Kvit, Portnov’s lawyers denied everything.
Portnov himself has not yet reacted to this information.
UPDATE, 12:35 a.m., JUNE 11: Portnov called the plagiarism claim a lie on his Telegram channel and posted a link to a publication on his own website, which he believes proves that there was no plagiarism.
He also said that he had already filed a lawsuit and published the conclusion of scientists from the Academy of Legal Sciences, which shows that there has “never been plagiarism in his works.”
PORTNOV’S SECRET
LIGA.net asked all of its interlocutors the same question: what is Portnov’s secret and how does he manage to keep the Ukrainian courts in line?
Horbatiuk believes that the secret is unscrupulousness: “He was one of the first in Ukraine to introduce a system of achieving goals at the political level by not only circumventing the law, but also pushing through laws that are so murky that they allow for any criminal goals for his clients. And he taught politicians that there are no limits. Everything can be solved.”
For part of the judiciary, Portnov is about protecting their real immunity. “In fact, none of the judges appointed under Portnov have been dismissed,” says Zhernakov, ”less than one percent were removed based on the results of the qualification assessment.
“The government is constantly changing and trying to influence the courts,” explains Horbatiuk. — “Portnov showed that he had influence under any government and could protect his people. And all judges want protection and a system where they can avoid responsibility. Vovk and Portnov are uniting such judges and building an illegal system. They push their people into the HCJ, the Council of Judges, and the HQCJ. If they don’t, their lawyers will write lawsuits and put paid-for materials in the media.”
“During Portnov’s tenure, a personnel structure was created that allows for administrative control of courts and judges,” says former HCJ member Ihor Fomin. — “And now you can appoint your own staff, promote your own people. And then they will owe you when they get to their positions. This is the kind of emotional barter that happens. Everyone is a living person. Someone has helped someone else at some point.”
INTERVIEWS WITH A TAILOR
Portnov began working publicly with the Party of Regions in 2008. On behalf of Tymoshenko, he worked on a package of joint bills with the Party of Regions that weakened Yushchenko’s presidential powers. In particular, the Rada obliged the president to coordinate the appointment of the Prosecutor General with the parliament. The bills were authored by Portnov and Party of Regions MP Oleksandr Lavrynovych.
When Tymoshenko lost the presidential election to Yanukovych, Portnov tried to convince her that filing a lawsuit with the Supreme Administrative Court was futile. Tymoshenko did not listen to Portnov, and he resigned as deputy head of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. After losing the case, Portnov broke off contact with Tymoshenko. “My fellow MPs Oliynyk, Pylypenko and Pysarenko and I concluded long before the presidential election that this was our last political life in the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc,” he explained.
In April 2010, Yanukovych appointed Portnov deputy head of the presidential administration and head of the judicial reform department. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc called Portnov’s action a “premeditated betrayal”. “There are a large number of people who are used to working only when their party or bloc is in power, and when you have to work in opposition, it is much more difficult,” Tymoshenko said.
In October 2011, the Pechersk court sentenced her to seven years in prison for gas contracts with Russia in 2009. A few months before, the former prime minister said that her sentence was agreed upon at a “meeting” with Yanukovych, which was attended by SBU chief Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, Presidential Administration chief Serhiy Lovochkin, Pechersk Court chairwoman Inna Otrosh, and Portnov.
An important detail is that it was Portnov who provided legal support for a number of Tymoshenko’s gas projects, including drafting an agreement to confiscate 11 billion cubic meters of gas from RosUkrEnergo. “Yulia Volodymyrivna brought him with her to Moscow, and he was sitting in a separate room all the time,” President Yushchenko said at a closed-door meeting of the National Security and Defense Council in 2009.
Portnov was quickly incorporated into Yanukovych’s power system and became a driver of judicial reform. “In practice, Portnov, Lukash, and Lavrynovych sat in the presidium, and the meetings themselves can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They sat and listened to the proposals of the group members, and then prepared the draft law they wanted. In other words, it was a body that could be used to cover up the adopted law,” Roman Kuibida, a member of the group and now deputy chairman of the board of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, told LIGA.net.
A few months after Portnov joined Yanukovych’s team, the parliament passed a law on the judiciary and the status of judges. It provided for the creation of the High Special Court for Civil and Criminal Cases. This and two other high special courts decided whether a case would be reviewed by the Supreme Court or not. Therefore, the Supreme Court was effectively deprived of influence on judicial practice, says Kuibida.
A special law lowered the quorum for decision-making in the High Council of Justice, which paved the way for mass dismissals of judges. In their place, judges were transferred, mostly from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, who were given leadership positions.
The High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ), chaired by Ihor Samsin, was in charge of the transfer and selection of judges, with Pavlo Vovk, the head of the DACK, as one of its members. Kuibida says that all translations were done quickly and synchronized. The HQCJ had information about the situation with vacancies in courts throughout Ukraine. It was classified information that the HQCJ guarded like the apple of its eye.
“Almost everyone who was appointed as a judge in 2010-2014 could not get around Portnov. Especially in leadership positions in large cities, you would not have gotten there without Portnov’s blessing,” Mykhailo Zhernakov, a former judge of the Vinnytsia District Administrative Court and chairman of the board of the Dejure Foundation, tells LIGA.net.
A source in law enforcement confirms Zhernakov’s words: “Those who wanted to get the position had to first get a certificate of admission from the HQCJ. And then the candidates had an “interview” with Portnov. If he did not like the person, all agreements with the HQCJ were nullified. “The ‘interview’ was essentially an oath of allegiance.”
Zhernakov and the source’s information was confirmed by Censor.net. “In the period from 2011 to 2014, no judge of the district court in Kyiv was appointed without a personal interview and Portnov’s consent,” Censor.net’s 2014 article reads.
Under Portnov, the method of appointing court presidents was regulated. Under Kuchma, the president and the Supreme Court fought for this right, but the president found convincing arguments for the Supreme Court (salary supplements) and won. Under Yushchenko, the CCU abolished the president’s power to appoint court leaders, and the Council of Judges was in charge. Under Yanukovych, this right was transferred to the HCJ, whose members were Portnov, Kivalov, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka, and the head of the Supreme Economic Court Viktor Tatkov. These four were the main centers of influence in the judicial system under Yanukovych and sometimes even competed with each other, says Kuibida.
The system of judicial self-government was changed. “Organizing committees manually selected delegates to the congress of judges. The congresses did not discuss anything, but simply approved the decisions sent down from the Presidential Administration,” Kuibida added.
Many judges are grateful to Portnov for their appointment, says Zhernakov: “Both then and now, judges are appointed arbitrarily. Everyone was afraid, because through the HCJ and the mechanism of disciplinary complaints, any judge could be dismissed. In this way, he extended his influence to the entire judicial system.”
For example, in 2011, Portnov helped to avoid liability for Pechersk Court judge Serhiy Vovk. One of the victims of Vovk’s decision filed a complaint, which was reviewed by Portnov as a member of the HCJ. Portnov found no violations on Vovk’s part. Eight years later, it was Vovk who satisfied Portnov’s claim for protection of honor and dignity and ordered to recover UAH 7 million from the state budget. However, in the Supreme Court, Portnov withdrew his claim and the 7 million. The case was closed.
In the Yanukovych Administration, Portnov was not only in charge of the courts and the new Criminal Procedure Code. For example, Portnov’s legal visa could have been covered by the Kharkiv agreements. In April 2010, the leader of the Party of Regions faction, Oleksandr Yefremov, said that he had personally discussed the legal side of the issue with Portnov, and he showed a memo stating that the agreements did not violate either the Constitution or the laws of Ukraine.
Portnov was assisted in the Administration by his old associates. The aforementioned Petrashko (Medvedchuk’s lawyer) headed the Department for Control of Law Enforcement. Maryna Parinova was in charge of representing the president’s interests in courts, Andriy Poyda was in charge of the department for law enforcement, and Vadym Fesenko was in charge of the department for the judiciary.
Fesenko played an important role during the Revolution of Dignity. According to Iryna Mamontova, a former judge of Kyiv’s Obolonsky Court, it was Fesenko who demanded the most severe punishments for Automaidan activists. “The judges were told that these people should be punished to the maximum. No one cared about the lack of evidence,” Automaidan lawyer Roman Maselko told LIGA.net.
According to him, judges informally confirm the fact of pressure, but refuse to testify. “Judges are afraid and see that no one has been brought to justice,” the lawyer told LIGA.net.
«KAZBEK, MOSCOW AND VIENNA
In early 2015, in an interview with journalist Pavel Sheremet, Portnov answered the question of why he chose Russia as a place to escape: “Well, where else? Russia is close, there is no language or mental barrier.”
In Russia, Portnov was issued a temporary residence permit for three years. He set up a law firm, AP Group, which he claims served Ukrainian businessmen in Russia and Russian businessmen in Ukraine, and the Institute of Legal Reform, which deals with “political issues, consultations, legislation.”
“I had almost $600,000 in my deposit account at PrivatBank. I transferred it to a credit card and use it. And now I am making money, my business is developing,” Portnov said in a 2015 interview.
“RASHIDOVICH KAZBEK”
Several people from Portnov’s inner circle appear in compromising correspondence with an employee of Putin’s presidential administration. Portnov’s involvement has not been proven, nor has the authenticity of the correspondence itself.
“These materials are very similar to the truth and fit into what was happening at the time. If we compare the time periods and the style of the answers, it is very true,” Viktor Yahun, former deputy head of the SBU (2014-2015), said in a comment to LIGA.net.
In May 2020, a website controlled by the Myrotvorets center uploaded a dump of a mailbox that, according to the authors, belonged to Boris Rapoport, deputy head of the Border Cooperation Department of the Russian Presidential Administration, who was personally supervised by Vladislav Surkov. The file archive contained more than 27,500 mail items over 12 years.
Dmytro Zolotukhin, an information technology expert and Deputy Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine (2017-2019), analyzed the dump, and he has no doubt about its veracity. “Usually, Russian officials linked their work (gov.ru domain) and personal (mail.ru) mailboxes to make it convenient to work from a smartphone,” he explains to LIGA.net.
Rapoport sends the first letter of interest from the official mailbox [email protected] to his personal mailbox [email protected]. This email from the mail address [email protected], from a sender called “Rashidovych Kazbek,” came on the night of May 2 to 3, 2014, immediately after the tragedy in Odesa.
The subject line contained only one word — “Poroshenko”. The body of the email contains a link to a page with a recording of a conversation between the owner of Channel 5, Poroshenko, and the channel’s director, Vladyslav Lyasovsky. The sender of the email recommends that Rapoport use the recording of the phone conversation to show it in the Russian media to show how Poroshenko influences the editorial policy of his TV channel.
Four days later, Kazbek sends Rapoport another letter promising to register an appeal to the International Criminal Court on behalf of the CPU faction’s deputies regarding the events in Odesa. On May 13, this statement was indeed registered in the Ukrainian parliament by a CPU MP.
On May 21, Rapoport receives five emails with attachments from Kazbek. The reference entitled “Media Campaign for 2014” contains a description of the opposition campaign on the issues of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, consisting of round tables, articles, investigations and comments on television. Some time later, Rashydovych Kazbek sent Rapoport a report on the results of this campaign, which was led by members of the Ukrainian Agrarian Association, Marian Zablotskyi (now an MP from the Servant of the People) and Volodymyr Makar (Portnov’s aide in the Rada).
In another reference, Kazbek describes a project to create a human rights NGO. The document offers three names for the future organization to choose from: European Human Rights Union; Ukrainian Human Rights Initiatives; Laboratory for Expert Legal Research. In addition, the “Kazbek” attaches the resumes of three people: Makar, Zablotskyi and lawyer Maryna Parinova.
One of the organizations proposed by Kazbek, the European Human Rights Union, was registered in Kyiv in June 2014, and Parinova, a lawyer from Portnova, became its director. In addition to her, the founders of the organization were Portnov’s former subordinates in the Presidential Administration, Ivan Boichenyuk and Andriy Poyda.
OLIGARCHS’ FIXER: WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM
Despite Portnov’s media exposure, little is known about his business or other sources of income. According to a certificate published by Portnov, he earned a decent amount of money in 2020 — UAH 41 million. This is despite the fact that more than half of his team’s projects are socially responsible. “There is project work, there is ongoing work, and some people do hourly work. But more than 50-60% of our work is social work. This is where money is not taken, where someone helps someone, volunteering,” Portnov said in an interview with BigMoney’s YouTube channel.
According to him, he has lawyers in different parts of the world. “There are a few lawyers in Vienna, a lawyer in Barcelona that we can contact. There are people whom I help and who are involved in international processes. They live in Armenia,” Portnov added.
At the same time, he does not like to expand the staff of lawyers and trusts only those who have been tested by time. “I have to be sure that there will be no information leakage, that the person will not call via GSM. I have to understand that the person will not betray me,” Portnov said.
Portnov has developed social media. For example, he has one of the largest channels on Telegram with 173,000 subscribers. But it is possible that some of them are bots. For example, the UkraineWorld project found that the accounts that republish Portnov’s Twitter posts make 70-180 tweets a day, too many for a real person.
Portnov is associated with the Law and Business website, which regularly covers the lawyer’s activities. The owner of the publication, according to the register of individuals, is Yuriy Petrenko. A person with the same initials was an assistant to MP Pysarenko, Portnov’s longtime associate.
According to Portnov’s former colleague in the legal corps, he earns money by selling his ability to solve problems. “The notional Kolomoisky turns to him, and he solves it through his friends. This is how 99% of lawyers make money,” the source told LIGA.net.
Declaration
Andrii Volodymyrovych Portnov has not submitted a declaration. According to Dossier, Portnov has not assessed his wealth, but considers himself a fairly wealthy person. His wife is a private notary.
Andriy Portnov is a fairly wealthy man. In an interview, he said that he earns about $50,000 a month from his law practice. According to media reports, the ex-deputy and owner of a fairly ordinary law firm earned UAH 1 million 52 thousand 162 in 2006 alone, and his wife earned UAH 1 million 416 thousand 404. In addition, Portnov owns a 102-square-meter apartment, a 25-hectare plot of land in the village of Vyshenky, Boryspil district, a Mercedes S 500, and his family owns another 77-square-meter apartment. The Portnovs also have two 300-square-meter garden houses, and Andriy’s wife owns an Audi Q7.
He has a visa and a work permit in Austria.
Conclusion.
Portnov is very dangerous, both for the country and for people in general. Blackmail, forgery, raider attacks, human rights violations… This man will stop at nothing to protect himself from exposure and achieve his goals. He is evil, acting only for the sake of money and power.