Mykhailo Plastun, or How Yanukovych-era cop became the head of the Polish branch of Ukrzaliznytsia

Mykhailo Plastun, or How Yanukovych-era cop became the head of the Polish branch of Ukrzaliznytsia

The last mention of Mykhailo Plastun in the public sphere was a year ago. His name was mentioned in a press release by Ukrzaliznytsia. And somehow bashfully, as if in passing: the national carrier reported that Mykhailo Plastun had been appointed director of the Polish “daughter” of Ukrzaliznytsia – Ukrainian Railways Cargo Poland LLC.

Two dry lines. Neither who he is, nor where he came from, nor what tasks he will perform - nothing. Although there is much more information about his colleague, who on the same day was appointed director of the representative office of Ukrzaliznytsia abroad. However, judge for yourself:

Oleksandra Vasylenko has almost a complete dossier. About Mykhailo Plastun - half a line. However, the explanation for this strangeness is simple: the authorities who appointed Mykhailo Plastun to his position preferred to keep silent about his biography. Because even against the background of those people who are currently in power in Ukraine, Plastun looks simply terrible.

Well, let’s try to make up for this shortcoming and tell the people who heads the Polish branch of Ukrzaliznytsia, which has become an outright corruption trough for corrupt officials loyal to the government.

Mykhailo Plastun is a former fighter against organised crime who was fired from the Ministry of Internal Affairs for actions incompatible with this fight. This alone speaks volumes - it takes a lot to get kicked out of the Ukrainian police for corruption, and from the position of a senior operative in the Economic Crime Department of the Kyiv Main Department of the National Police. Of course, Plastun was neither fired nor imprisoned - he was simply given the opportunity to leave quietly, so that he would not drag his patrons with him. This happened back in 2018.

And this is despite the fact that Plastun was the creation of Anton Herashchenko and Arsen Avakov, who remained in their positions even under the next government. It is still unknown what exactly Mykhailo Plastun did as a senior operative of the Economic Protection Department of the Main Department of the National Police in Kyiv. But it was a serious act, since he had to resign from the authorities.

The seriousness of the offence is evidenced by the fact that in earlier years, as deputy head of the Department for Combating Organised Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Sumy Oblast, he was involved in laundering 74 million hryvnias (the dollar was 8) of fake VAT through the Sumyavtogaz company. But the scandal was hushed up, and Plastun remained at work. He kept his position even after the Maidan, having quickly found a common ground with a representative of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s team, Vitaliy Kostyuk, head of the internal security department of the Ministry of Revenue and Duties in Sumy region. Kostyuk controlled smuggling - Sumy region borders on Russia - and represented the interests of Volodymyr Yatsenyuk, who is Arseniy Petrovych’s brother.

Then he was promoted and "resurfaced" in Kyiv, where he successfully worked in the Department of Economic Protection of the National Police and was involved in the seizure of the office building at 26 Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street from the representatives of the Donetsk clan who had fled. The building belonged to the entourage of former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka. And Mikhail Plastun simply opened a criminal case against the owners. They considered it a good thing not to take any risks.

However, it is worth clarifying here that Plastun was not acting in his own interests, but in favour of Vitaliy Kropachov. Until 2014, he had the unofficial title of "King of Torez" and is known as a person who took a pro-Ukrainian position during the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014. What really happened is a very murky story, but later Kropachev was called the "coal king" and the organiser of that rather incomprehensible blockade of railway lines, which was organised by very strange people with equally strange slogans. He is only remembered for his public show on the Maidan and the stolen locomotive that the ’patriots’ took from Ukrzaliznytsia. The story is also an old one, but there is one more detail about Kropachev that should be mentioned: until 2014, he headed the Party of Regions in Torez and was the "keeper of order" for the Donetsk clan. But we are interested in Mykhailo Plastun, not Kropachev, although in terms of serving the former’s interests, the latter’s personality is more colourful.

After the story with the Pshonka business centre, something happened, and Plastun had to resign from the police. Whether these two events are connected is unknown. He weathered the storm - which also seems surreal, but this is our country - at Karazin Kharkiv National University. As a lecturer and doctor of law. That was a huge step forward for an IAPM graduate.

Obviously, Mykhailo Plastun’s doctoral salary did not satisfy him, as he simultaneously went into business, founding Virtum JSC and Rafael Business Centre LLC.

Moreover, the latter is also associated with a scandal - in 2020, the Kyiv City State Administration gave permission for the construction of BC Rafael LLC in the historical center of Kyiv, on Lesi Ukrainka Boulevard, a seven-story office center. However, there is no detailed territorial plan (DPT) for this land.

But, apparently, Mykhailo Plastun managed to find a common language with the Kyiv authorities and received permission for construction. The construction area is 0.0759 hectares, which is a huge amount of money on the scale of the capital, and especially its center. We’re talking literally millions. And that’s just the price of land. We can’t even presume to guess how much a seven-story office center in this location costs. Although, according to reports, BC Rafael LLC is poor.

In any case, it follows that the former policeman and fighter against economic crime Mykhailo  Plastun fought against it not in vain, since he managed to accumulate a sufficient amount of money for such a construction project. And at the same time he managed to establish contact with the new government, which promised to imprison people like him.

In parallel with the construction, Mykhailo  Plastun continued his public activities as a lawyer and at the same time criticized the authorities. How he managed to combine this is unknown, but the fact is clear: with one hand he took bread from the authorities, and with the other he threw stones at it.

In the screenshot above you see Mykhailo Plastun’s criticism of the Verkhovna Rada, which in 2021 adopted a rule on registering women for military service. True, he criticized cautiously - apparently, he remembered the business center under construction in Bessarabka. And he was preparing for new achievements.

Which soon came to his fate - as already mentioned, Mikhail Plastun became the director of the Polish branch of Ukrzaliznytsia. Apparently, such personnel are very necessary there. And for Mykhailo  Plastun himself, this appointment is an obvious opportunity to improve his financial situation. Because, as it turned out, he is such a businessman.