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We have already told you about the fabulous wealth and close ties with the oligarchs Fuchs and Kolomoisky of the judge of the Northern Court of Appeal Marina Barsuk. Nowadays, the servant of Themis strives to head that very court in order to “work for the good of the state” even more effectively.
No less interesting is the story of Barsuk’s husband, a fairly famous metropolitan lawyer, Viktor Barsuk. In his life, he accomplished many feats - and all of them brought him, albeit dubious fame, but definitely a gold coin. Badger became especially active in earning capital already under Petro Poroshenko, when he began working as a “black lawyer” for the well-known Alexander Granovsky, who “looks” over the entire legal field from Petro Poroshenko and is a liaison for the courts.
Citizen Granovsky, who is formally a people’s deputy, appeared in the Rada occasionally during his entire term, and only in the dining room. He held numerous secret meetings at which issues of national importance were decided, mainly in expensive Kyiv restaurants, which is why he gained significant weight during his five years as a deputy. Not as politically as physically, but what can you do, such work. After Granovsky solved the issues in a basic way, he transferred the technical part of the matter to Badger - and he was already involved in the practical part of the matter. With the help of the owners of the law firm “EQUITY” (formerly “FCLEX”), Viktor Barsuk and Oleg Malinevsky, Granovsky got involved in numerous legal wars and won most of them. The point here, of course, is less about the high competence of the lawyers, and more about the fact that Poroshenko and Granovsky had tame judges, but the fact remains that it was Barsuk and his friend who prepared all the documents for the dirty dealings of the previous government.
Thus, the EQUITY company three years ago defended the interests of Trade Commodity LLC in the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine. Remember the dispute that thundered throughout Ukraine over tenders for the supply of fuel to Ukrzaliznytsia in the amount of about 162 million UAH? The money was essentially stolen from the state, but Barsuk got the court to unblock the purchases in favor of TK. And already in 2017, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau detained Deputy Minister of Defense Igor Pavlovsky for wasting one and a half hundred million on fuel purchases - precisely in collaboration with TK.
At a press conference after Pavlovsky’s arrest, Trade Commodity tried to cleanse itself of the scandal through the mouths of Andrei Adamovsky and Vladimir Trofimenko. The first is Granovsky’s business partner, with whom they jointly squeezed out the Sky Mall shopping center in 2014. It was Barsuk and Dovbenko who provided them with legal support.
Thanks to the selective justice of the NABU and its loyalty to Poroshenko’s people, Pavlovsky was made a scapegoat - and the “TK” associated with Granovsky was quickly disentangled. It’s interesting that Trofimenko founded the construction company Nest, which is also run by guess which legal group? That’s right - "EQUITY".
Barsuk and his comrade Malinevsky use raider schemes for conducting cases: using the “carousel” principle, they bombard the same court with a number of identical claims, so that ultimately the plaintiff can choose a judge bribed in advance, who makes the right decision.
Using a similar scheme, they stole SkyMall from an Estonian investor, and later. the capital’s Horizon Park business center is owned by a large Ukrainian bank with Italian capital. “Black lawyers” used fake court decisions to invalidate the purchase and sale agreement for a business center and get their hands on it absolutely for nothing. The bank twice repelled attacks from raiders who, using a private notary and fake court decisions, twice re-registered the disputed property.
But one of the most scandalous cases that Barsuk handled was representing the interests of Roman Nasirov, accused of stealing more than two billion hryvnia from the state. He personally accompanied the stretcher with the fainting Nasirov in Feofaniya, and then fought for him in the Solomensky court. People’s Deputy Sergei Leshchenko publicly accused Granovsky of the fact that the top leadership of the state, through the hands of Granovsky, is taking Nasirov out of the attack. “According to my information, Alexander Granovsky is related to the scheme. He is the author of this script, and the center of his control is in the Presidential Administration,” Leshchenko said. The media wrote that lawyers were preparing a legal blitzkrieg in the best traditions of legal raiding. Absolutely everything was thought out, right down to the color of the blanket in which the weak Nasirov was wrapped.
Money has no smell for Victor Barsuk. That’s why he defended in court the Gavrilovskie Kurchata poultry farm, which distinguished itself in a number of high-profile cases. Let us remind you that the GPU conducted many searches and detained the owners of the agricultural holding, Marina and Evgeniy Sigalov, on charges of setting up a huge bird burial ground in the Kyiv region. Residents of Gavrilovka itself and the surrounding villages were literally screaming about an environmental disaster, but for a long time no one was interested. The poultry farm was accused of causing losses amounting to more than two hundred million, and a criminal case was opened. But ultimately, EQUITY ensured that the Seagals were released on bail.
In addition, Barsa defended the scandalous mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov, who is accused of stealing almost a hundred million hryvnia in a scheme to purchase the Krayan plant.
Barsuk’s lawyers also defended Granovsky’s close friend Sergei Berezenko, who in 2015 was a candidate for people’s deputy from the BPP in the 205th constituency in Chernigov.
Moreover, Granovsky’s value to Badger is so high that for his sake the lawyer is even ready to “dump” his existing clients. There are two most famous cases. The first is associated with the owner of the AIS group, Dmitry Svyatash.
At the same time, Granovsky and Barsuk can cheat the client. As in the case of people’s deputy from the Vozrozhdenie group Dmitry Svyatash, owner of the Avtoinveststroy group of companies. In 2018, Barsuk represented the interests of AIS and, according to his favorite scheme, filed a heap of lawsuits at once in the court controlled by Granovsky. And then everything is simple - Granovsky decided to squeeze out a successful business and gave the command for AIS to lose the case. Badger lost a client, but he filled his pockets considerably. By the same principle, a number of courts of Avtokraz PJSC, which entered the orbit of Granovsky’s interests, lost at once.
Poroshenko himself is the beholder, however, more than once he tried to disown both Malinevsky and Badger. But the journalists of the “Schemes” program filmed his meeting with “black lawyers” in one of the capital’s restaurants.
Another journalistic investigation revealed that Granovsky, through Badger and his people, is hiding a dozen luxury cars from declaration. Thus, the only car registered to Granovsky himself, a Toyota Land Cruiser 200, previously belonged to citizen Vita Afonina, the wife of Vyacheslav Afonin, who worked in one of Badger’s companies. It also includes a Mercedes Vito, Granovsky’s accompanying car. Afonin himself, by the way, is as poor as a church mouse.
The Audi A8, which Granovsky often drives, is registered to Elena Barsuk, who also worked in our hero’s company. Another “Auda” formally belongs to Viktor Potienko, who is mentioned in the declaration of Viktor Barsuk’s wife Anzhelika Labunskaya. He paid the Badgers a million hryvnia for the alienation of movable property - the same Audi car bought from a lawyer. True, he earned an unfortunate 20 thousand UAH in five years, so it is not clear where the money came from.
In the same way, several more of Granovsky’s cars are scattered among Badger’s friends and colleagues - Toyota Land Cruiser 200, Mercedes S600, and so on.