2024 The third year of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The whole country is volunteering, collecting donations and trying to speed up victory. It would be strange if people who had been robbing the country for years, working with Yanukovych’s henchmen and defending Russian narratives did not start to get involved in good deeds. One of these “philanthropists” turned out to be banker Volodymyr Klymenko, who brought one of the first commercial banks in Ukraine, Ukrinbank, to bankruptcy - billions of depositors’ money was stuck there. His connection with pro-Russian figures was established through a charitable foundation and elections 12 years ago.
Volodymyr Klymenko is a native of Luhansk. He is known for being one of the founders of the bankrupt Ukrinbank. In 2015, the National Bank of Ukraine declared the bank insolvent, and in the summer of 2016, overnight, the bank was renamed into PJSC Ukrinom and registered in Sievierodonetsk. To this day, the Deposit Guarantee Fund is still trying to sue Klymenko, and he, in turn, continues to try to transfer the bank’s assets to the "right" pocket.
In addition to his financial activities, Volodymyr Klymenko also has a charity foundation called the Power of Unity. The philanthropist’s Facebook page shows that he is currently helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine, organising concerts and publishing books in Ukrainian. Klymenko himself boasts of gratitude from former Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi and the Ministry of Defence. But his demonstrable patriotism stands in stark contrast to the way he acted a decade ago and the people he counts among his closest friends.
In 2012, Volodymyr Klymenko, a resident of Luhansk, ran for the Verkhovna Rada in a constituency in Ternopil region. The local press wrote that he was blessed to run in an ideologically opposite region by the head of the Party of Regions and former head of Luhansk Oblast, Oleksandr Yefremov. The same Yefremov who, after the occupation of Donbas, was accused by a court of treason and terrorist financing.
Considerable administrative resources were devoted to Klymenko’s victory. In particular, it was actively promoted by representatives of the local government. The main message of his election campaign was the repair of roads in the Ternopil region. Officially, everything was carried out through the Galicia-Volyn charity foundation, created just before the elections. This is the same fund that is now called “The Power of Unity.”
While the election campaign was ongoing, Klymenko and his foundation boasted that they had managed to repair some roads. However, after he lost to Svoboda’s Mykhailo Holovko, it turned out that he had not actually built any roads, but had simply issued loans from his own Ukrinbank to the local road company. Moreover, the local press reported that even on those roads that had been repaired, the work stopped immediately after the election.
"Before the election, they started repairing the road from our villages to the district centre. They laid about three kilometres of asphalt. Candidate Klymenko from the Galicia-Volyn Foundation came to visit, told us to vote for him and promised to lay a new road to the district centre by the end of the year. They even brought gravel to the village for that road. But he did not get a majority in our villages. So right after the election, the trucks came and took the gravel away. Now it turns out that part of the road is there, and part of it is just a pit on top of a pit. In more than one section, the gravel has just been rolled out, but the asphalt has not been laid," a local resident told the press in 2012.
There is another key point in the election story. Ternopil Avtodor was involved in Volodymyr Klymenko’s PR campaign for a reason. Not only did Ukrinbank provide him with loans at a hefty interest rate, but the salaries of Ternopil Oblavtodor employees were transferred to this bank.
It should be mentioned that during the time of the fugitive president, Volodymyr Demishkan was the head of Ukravtodor. He is a former member of the Party of Regions who moved to Russia in 2014 and has a Russian passport. Demishkan was repeatedly suspected of embezzling Ukravtodor funds back in the Party of Regions days, but after he fled to Russia, he was forgotten.
It’s a pity, though, because he is, for example, one of the founders of the Kedr hunting club, which was registered in Mezhyhirya, which was then occupied by Yanukovych.
Along with him, all the prominent Party of Regions members were members of the club - from Yuriy Boyko to Serhiy Kivalov. Another interesting person is Serhiy Yevtushenkov. He is a Russian oligarch who is closest to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
According to Volodymyr Boyko, MP of the seventh convocation, Demishkan is the godfather of philanthropic banker Volodymyr Klymenko. This explains why the main topic of the election campaign was roads that have never been repaired.
The Galicia-Volyn Charitable Foundation stayed in Ternopil until 2014, but after the 2012 elections, it was virtually inactive. Later, it moved to the very centre of Kyiv, to Instytutska Street in the government quarter, and changed its name to "Power of Unity".
More than 10 years have passed since the 2012 elections. Yanukovych is no longer president, Demishkan has settled in Moscow using a Russian passport, and Yefremov, although he stayed in Ukraine, fled to Belokamyana after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, their friend Volodymyr Klymenko, who may have helped to withdraw funds from Ukrinbank in the interests of the above-mentioned individuals, is doing well and has even switched his social media to Ukrainian.
Klymenko receives gratitude from the military, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff for helping the Ukrainian army. At the same time, he is not at all embarrassed by the fact that his closest friends and even his godfather have chosen to live in the occupying country. By their choice, they have made it clear that they support Putin’s policy of hostility towards Ukraine and are ready to assist him in this by paying taxes in Russia.
Author: Olena Dobrodiy