The Moscow City Court sentenced to two years in prison a former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Nikolai Rudkovsky, who participated in the attack on the Russian Embassy in Kiev in 2014. This is not particularly noticeable in Russia, a retired Ukrainian official in reality is an extremely interesting character. Investigation of Rucriminal.info revealed that a former member of the harem of Rudkovsky became the wife of the closest associate of Donald Trump, Phil Ruffin. Rudko-kovsky personally sorted the archive of “Melnichonok films”, which contains a compromise for many Ukrainian officials and VIPs. Rudkovsky owned assets related to the transportation of gas and oil.
“Assign Rudkovsky a sentence of two years imprisonment in a penal colony of general regime,” the judge’s verdict, announced on Monday, says the sentence.
During the debate of the parties, it was reported that the state prosecution requested that Rudkovsky be sentenced to six years in prison.
In addition, the court ruled to Rudkovsky the time of being detained at the rate of one day in a pre-trial detention center for one and a half in a general regime colony. Thus, in conclusion, the ex-deputy had to spend about three months.
The court, taking into account extenuating circumstances — partial compensation of Rudkovsky’s pecuniary damage in the amount of 2 million rubles, dependent children and positive characteristics, behavior during the investigation and repentance — found grounds for punishing him “below the lowest”, than his charge provides.
As Rucriminal.info found out, Nikolai Rudkovsky has a lot to do with Moscow. He studied here and did business. But even more it connects with France and Belgium. In 2008, he was even tried in Ukraine for flying a state plane in private jets to these two countries. An interesting fact “surfaced” at the hearings — Rudkovsky made trips both for personal purposes (with his mistresses) and mainly on behalf of Andrey Klyuyev, the “gray cardinal” under Viktor Yanukovych. After 2014, Rudkovsky and his main official business partner Nestor Shufrich sold their assets in Ukraine, the main of which was Neftegazdobycha, and the funds were transferred to Europe.
The initial biography of Nikolai Rudkovsky is extremely confusing, primarily by himself. At different times, in different positions, he submitted documents that he graduated from the School of Business at MGIMO, that Pleshka, that MSU, that the Vienna University of Economics. When requests were made to these universities, answers came that in reality he did not learn them. In this regard, scandals arose, but Rudkovsky managed to quickly “catch them”. It is an established fact that his grandfather Nikolai Prikhodko lived in Vienna, who joined the Nazis in 1941, became a policeman, was sentenced to long sentences in 1946, and then went to Austria. It was his grandfather who helped Nicholas settle in Austria. He worked in firms of immigrants from the USSR, then engaged in the supply of clothing and food products to the Siberian regions of Russia. Accordingly, he often visited Moscow. Then Rudkovsky organized his own companies engaged in this type of activity. Articles appeared in the media that he allegedly could have been involved in the supply of weapons and even drugs to Albania, Iraq, etc., however, their credibility is difficult to verify, it is possible that they were the result of “incriminating wars” in Ukraine . In any case, in the early 90s, Rudkovsky acquired a lot of connections, initial capital and in 1994 began to build a political and bureaucratic career in Ukraine. He was a member of the campaign headquarters of Leonid Kuchma, where he represented the interests of certain sponsors of the election campaign. There is every reason to suspect that at that time, Rudkovsky’s senior partner was Nikolai Martynenko, head of the Trading House company, who later became a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. Martynenko is a major player in the business and political field of Ukraine. At least in the 90s, Rudkovsky was among the leading employees of the Trading House
For participation in the election campaign in 1994, Rudkovsky was awarded the post of chief consultant in the presidential administration of Ukraine. In September 1996, Rudkovsky became director of the State Investor of Ukraine. In January 1998, he was appointed deputy chairman of the board of JSC "Ukrgazprom", and after the transformation of this company into NAK "Neftegaz of Ukraine" - deputy general director of the State Corporation "Trading House" NAK "Neftegaz of Ukraine."
In these positions, Mykola Rudkovsky did not forget about his own interests and acquired significant assets in Ukraine. In particular, he, along with Nestor Shufrich, became partners in gas production at boreholes in the Poltava region. Then, other similar ones, as well as oil production wells, were added to this asset. As a result, the company Neftegazdobycha was under the control of Rudkovsky and Shufrich.
However, unexpectedly, Rudkovsky interrupted the career of an official and transferred to a modest post of assistant to a deputy of the Socialist Party of Ukraine Valentina Semenyuk. But that was for a very short period. Soon, having good financial resources, Rudkovsky entered the governing bodies of the SPU, and then got into her elective lists. According to Rucriminal.info, his "finest" hour came when it was Nikolai Rudkovsky and his brother Sergey who were instructed to process the "Melnichenko films" from which the "Gogngadze case" was born. They even tried to accuse the Rudkovskys of falsifying the records, the SBU conducted searches of the brothers, but it turned out that they simply processed them creatively. They cut out everything about the “right” people, and left everything in relation to the “goals”, including Kuchma.
According to the prevailing legend, thanks to the desire of Kuchma and others, to “hush up” the Rudkovsky scandal and put together the main capital. It was then that he received the main deposits, the State Property Fund of Ukraine, distributing quotas for the supply of Krivorozhstal products, included offshore companies controlled by Rudkovsky among them, some privatized enterprises were transferred to him, etc.
In 2006, Rudkovsky was elected mayor of Chernigov, but after a couple of months received from Yanukovych (served as Prime Minister) an offer to become Minister of Transport. As it turned out later, this coincided with a scandalous history. Records appeared in the media, from which it followed that the “gray cardinal” of Yanukovich, Andrey Klyuyev, was negotiating with Rudkovsky that in exchange for 300 million (the currency was not called, but it looks like dollars), SPU would merge with the “Party of Regions” "(Yanukovych), which would give the latter the opportunity to become the" king "of the Verkhovna Rada.
Further it is clearly traced that Rudkovsky worked under the leadership of Klyuev. So there was a scandalous story when journalists accidentally filmed how Klyuyev handed Rudkovsky a piece of paper with a text in which he had to “run into” certain officials. Then already Rudkovsky had objects in France, in particular real estate and a yacht. In the neighborhood, Klyuev owned immobility. Rudkovsky had an attraction to France at the ministerial post; for state contracts, he preferred to negotiate with French firms. In particular, he introduced negotiations with the French company Alstom on the introduction of high-speed rail traffic in Ukraine
In January 2007, Rudkovsky was mentioned in the press in connection with the scandal surrounding the arrival in December 2006 of the leaders of the Turkmen opposition - Khudayberdy Orazov and Nurmukhammed Hanamov (after the death of the first president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, many opposition leaders were forced to hide abroad , where they intensified their activities, hoping to return to the political life of the Central Asian republic). This visit was organized by Rudkovsky, who arbitrarily contacted a number of Ukrainian embassies in European countries and demanded that entry be issued to the Turkmen opposition to "urgently, by the same night". The minister motivated his demands with a decision of the top leadership of Ukraine, which, as it turned out later, no one accepted. In January 2007, Rudkovsky was accused of harming the national security of Ukraine: on behalf of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yanukovych signed an order to conduct an internal investigation into Rudkovsky. The head of state insisted on the resignation of the official, but Yanukovych stated that he sees no reason for this. Analysts expressed the view that this story could negatively affect the energy partnership between Kiev and Al-Habad, but it was soon announced that Turkmenistan was completely satisfied with the explanations of official Kiev, and therefore the scandal with Rudkovsky would not affect the supply of Turkmen gas to Ukraine. Commenting on the situation, Khanamov noted that it contradicts the democratic principles of Ukraine. Rudkovsky expressed surprise at the position of the Ukrainian president and said that Yushchenko "in a year turned from a democrat to Turkmenbashi."
On December 14, 2007, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) summoned Rudkovsky to be interrogated in the case of illegal use of state funds in the Ministry of Transport;
On December 18, 2007, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed the government of Viktor Yanukovych. Then Rudkovsky left his post at the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine.
In February 2008, the Prosecutor General opened another case concerning Rudkovsky. It was reported that a pre-trial investigation of the abuse of official position and the seizure of funds on a particularly large scale by officials of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the State Highway Service, JSC Highways of Ukraine OJSC was reported
On February 10, 2008, the SBU detained Rudkovsky in a case of illegal use of state funds. It was about flying private jets at a state expense abroad, primarily to France. At the hearing, interesting details surfaced. It turned out that part of the trips Rudkovsky made with his mistress Miss Ukraine-Universe Alexandra Nikolaenko. Niko-laenko later married an American billionaire, a friend of the current US president, Donald Trump, Phil Ruffin.
And the other part of trips, in particular to France and Belgium, was made for certain business negotiations on behalf of Andriy Klyuyev.
When Yanukovych became president, this case was “hushed up” - the prosecutor’s office itself refused the charges.
In August 2010, Rudkovsky was elected first secretary of the political council of the Socialist Party of Ukraine. In this position, he tried to remove Alexander Moroz from the post of SPU chairman, but lost the battle and was forced to leave the ranks of SPU.
In October 2012, Rudkovsky took part in the seventh convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as a self-nominated candidate and was elected. He joined the Party of Regions. Again he was considered a protege of Klyuyev. Information flashed that he was connected with gambling in Ukraine and Belarus, in the last country he acquired various assets with partners.
In 2013, SCM Rinat Akhmetov's group acquired 25% of Neftegazdobycha shares from Rudkovsky. According to some reports, the deal amounted to $ 125 million. Then, until 2016, Akhmetov bought from Rudkovsky and Shufrich all of their packages of Neftegazdobycha.
Rudkovsky did not participate in the Kiev Maidan of 2013-2014.
On June 4, 2014, an rally was held at the Russian Embassy in Kiev, Nikolai Rudkovsky decided to reassure the gathering. Those gathered surrounded him, forced him to admit that he was Ukrainian Crimea and threw cobblestones at the embassy, and then they poured green on them.
However, in 2016, the TFR unexpectedly opened a case against him, announced a search, and the Basmanny court arrested him in absentia. Moreover, this fact was not particularly advertised, although the Basmanny Court website has relevant information.
In the fall of 2014, Rudkovsky did not elect to the Verkhovna Rada and left the country. It is known that he mainly lived in France.
After that, Ukraine put Rudkovsky on the Interpol line in the case of the abduction of the former head of the Neftegazdobycha company Oleg Seminsky in 2011. Nikolai Rudkovsky and Nestor Shufrich were among the owners of the company, but then the search was withdrawn, as well as claims to Rud-kovsky.
In the spring of 2018, information appeared that Rudkovsky was arrested in the UAE with a fake Iraqi passport. But he soon denied this information. And in the fall of 2018, Rudkovsky was detained in Moscow.
To be continued
Timofei Zabiyakin
