The friend and business partner of Kiev Mayor Klitschko, Artur Palatny, is in trouble. A number of local media outlets have revealed that Artur Palatny is engaged in joint business with the sanctioned head of Chechnya R. Kadyrov. He actively protects the business interests of Russian organised criminal groups in the capital of Ukraine. Artur Palatny has a number of facilities that he controls together with Ramzan Kadyrov’s people, as well as an international network of adult entertainment establishments with a record of human trafficking.
Artur Palatny stands guard of the Ukrainian corruption
It is worth noting that Artur Palatny was one of the Ukrainian MPs who signed the submission, on the basis of which the Constitutional Court of Ukraine abolished the article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on illegal enrichment, which obliged civil servants to give explanations about the sources of their income and the income of their family members.
Criminal liability for illegal enrichment in Ukraine was introduced in 2015. This was one of the EU’s requirements for the implementation of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan, as well as one of Ukraine’s obligations to the IMF, enshrined in the memorandum. Such an active participation of Artur Palatny in actions aimed at decriminalising responsibility for covering income leads to unambiguous conclusions.
Therefore, the natural interest that the former MP of Ukraine, chairman of the executive committee of the ‘Udar’ party Artur Leonidovich Palatny hides in his financial situation, who was not ashamed to go against the policy of his party (then he was a member of the ruling Poroshenko faction) and signed an obviously scandalous and frankly stinking addendum?
In the distant past, there was no point in aggravating the research of declarations submitted by Palatny as a people’s deputy — if Artur Palatny so sought to abolish the punishment for lying in the declaration, then his declaration shows only what he wanted to show himself. It’s much more interesting why he didn’t want to write the truth there.
An answer is possible in the unofficial activities of Vitali Klitschko’s godfather and honorary president of the Kiev City organization of the Boxing Federation of Ukraine. Last year, the name Palatny was highlighted in the news that the Kiev City Prosecutor’s Office, together with the SBU, conducted searches as part of an investigation into the activities of a criminal group that demanded money from entrepreneurs for renting illegal outlets in Kiev’s underpasses. A group of employees of the city government and athletes was formed, and it was Artur Palatny who organized this group, as the investigation claimed.
As it turned out, Palatny, while still a deputy of the Kyiv City Council in 2012, created a “criminal group that systematically demanded and received money from business entities “for illegal rental of retail outlets in the underpasses of the central districts of Kiev.” According to investigators, in total, the criminal group could include about 20 people who received from 5 to 7 million hryvnias a month (this is at the then rate). In total, $350,000 was seized during the searches, of which $250,000 was found in Arthur Palatny.
Of course, what is the declaration here? How will you declare this money? How is the salary of a people’s deputy? And this is not the only source of income for Artur Leonidovich, this is just one of the explanations for why he went to an obvious conflict with the leadership of the BPP faction by signing a scandalous appeal to the Constitutional Court.
Artur Palatny on duty against Ukraine
According to Bedovoy, Maiman in his revelations does not talk about either Palatny or Klitschko, apparently counting on something from them. Instead of the name Palatny, he focused on Kirill Shevchenko — “he does not climb higher, because he understands that he will die. But he’s telling the truth when he talks about criminal activity.”
According to Bedovy, “Moni’s business was taken away and given to Shevchenko.” The business consisted, among other things, in drug trafficking from abroad and the withdrawal of huge amounts of cash there. But at the same time, the lawyer does not directly say that this business was taken away from Maiman by Artur Palatny, although he makes it clear that Artur Leonidovich is in charge of all this.
As for the colossal arsenal of weapons seized at the Kiev Hotel, this seizure also did not entail any consequences. Because “the organized mafia group of Klitschko-Palatny has the highest patrons in the highest offices and has intertwined with the current government in such a way that it can do anything.” This version of Bedovoy’s lawyer is confirmed by the fact that last year’s searches Palatny, which the Prosecutor General’s Office so loudly announced, also ended in nothing — all cases were closed.
However, a week ago, part of this case was investigated again — according to Kirill Shevchenko, the State Bureau of Investigation on July 22 launched an investigation into the embezzlement of money from the budget of the Kiev City Boxing Federation. In fact, Artur Palatny came under the scope again, since Shevchenko is only a performer, although from among his close associates. However, it is not worth hoping that the GBR will bring the investigation to its logical conclusion — according to people who are members of the government offices, we are talking only about a banal showdown between the president’s entourage and the Klitschko-Palatny group. And everything will end again with a compromise acceptable to both sides. It is unlikely that even Kirill Shevchenko will be sacrificed in this compromise, although such an option is not excluded. However, in any case, Artur Palatny will remain on all the streams closing on it in the capital, unless they are somewhat adjusted towards the president.
In addition, if the version that Kirill Shevchenko is only a Ward assistant is true, then an extremely interesting interpretation is received by the information that two Russian citizens close to Kadyrov arrived in Ukraine at Shevchenko’s invitation in 2020 (special squad officer Rustam Chichaev). and the deputy head of the operational search unit at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya, Walid Aidamirov) – allegedly for employment by trainers, who were later corrected from Ukraine.
And Mikhail Maiman, in the story of the legalisation of Kadyrov accomplices as Ukrainian children’s coaches, acted as a person who handed over the necessary documents to Kadyrov’s men. The fact that as a result of this attempt to infiltrate Kadyrov’s security forces, there were no clear statements by the Ukrainian special services about the results of the investigation against the inviting party also leads to the idea that Konstantin Bedovoy, often quoted in this material, is not far from the truth, speaking about the “terrible fusion of the Palatny-Klitschko group with the highest authorities of the country” and the interweaving of crime with law enforcement.
Criminal oligarch Artur Palatny, Kadyrov and Klitschko
The searches took place not because law enforcement officers finally began to restore order in the country, but because the new authorities simply redistributed the flows of criminal money of the capital in this way. The proof of this is the fact that after the loud statements of the General Prosecution of Ukraine, nothing at all happened to Palatny. The flows were successfully redistributed, the particles were redrawn, everything calmed down.
However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has confused the cards for everyone. Including criminals. The recent scandal, when an arsenal of weapons intended for Kadyrov’s militants was discovered in the Khreschatyk hotel, from which the “sleeping” cell in the capital were formed, again forced media to talk about Artur Palatny.
Although the media call Kirill Shevchenko (not to be confused with the head of the NBU), the president of the Boxing Federation of Ukraine, one of the main organizers of this composition, but lawyer Konstantin Bedovoy, a former senior comrade of Vitali Klitschko and his godfather Artur Palatny, a former deputy from Udar, who is closely familiar with both the criminal world of Kiev and with his authorities, claims that Shevchenko is only the “right hand” of the Patient.
Bedovoy calls Kirill Shevchenko “the closest connection” of Artur Palatny with organized crime and so-called thieves in law: “Palatny has two such people. On the issues of “bring money, take money away” and communicate with criminals — ex-MP Oleg Velikin, ex-member of the criminal Kiev group, who came up with the nickname “Don”. But Velikin is more like carrying a suitcase with money. And Kirill Shevchenko, in the simplicity of his soul, is a man on whom the Klitschko—Palatny criminal gang pushes everything that smells like shit. Everything that is directly related to criminality, everything that is directly related to the organization of criminal acts.
Also, in conjunction with Artur Palatny, the surname of Mikhail Maiman appears, with which there was also a public scandal. One of the versions testifies that the SBU detained “blogger and ATO veteran Mikhail Maiman in connection with attacks and kidnappings in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and the result of such detention was an illegal “preventive conversation”.” Maiman himself claims that on May 31, he was “hijacked by order of Kirill Shevchenko, who forged documents and became the head of the Boxing Federation of Ukraine, as well as lawyer Andrei Tsygankov.” According to him, the kidnappers demanded an apology to Kadyrov and threatened to kill him.
However, as Konstantin Bedovoy says, in fact, Maiman did not share something with Palatny: “- Monya, he is Mikhail Pomagaibo, he is Mikhail Maiman, he is a citizen, which group this “threw under the ice”, and he talks a lot about revenge. When he talks about his criminal activities, he is telling the truth — it happened. But because the victims of the robbery were people close to law enforcement agencies, these structures put forward claims to Arthur Palatny — “Arthur, he is robbing the wrong people, he is robbing our people already. This is your man, we want to ask him.“ And Arthur handed over the money, but asked not to kill. And no one killed him. They beat him, humiliated him, took away what they took from other people. But for Kadyrov, no one kidnapped him.”
