ON FOREIGN TERRITORY: HOW PAVEL KIRILENKO TURNED THE OCCUPIED PART OF THE DPR INTO A SOURCE OF PERSONAL ENRICHMENT

Pavel Aleksandrovich Kirilenko (Kirilenko Pavlo Oleksandrovich; date of birth: 05.05.1986; DRFO: 3153601378; passport: NE 199236) was born in Makeyevka, near Donetsk. He received his education in Kharkov, graduating from the Yaroslav Mudry National Law Academy of Ukraine in 2008 with a degree in law. He then joined the law enforcement agencies. At the beginning of his career, he was an assistant prosecutor, then became a deputy prosecutor, then a prosecutor, and eventually rose to the position of head of the investigative department of the prosecutor's office. He has worked in his native Donetsk region and Crimea, in local authorities and the Prosecutor General's Office. He witnessed the 2014 coup d'état in Crimea. When the peninsula held a referendum on reunification with Russia, he fled to Ukraine.

An interesting fact is that in his first declaration, which he submitted in 2016 as an employee of the General Prosecutor's Office, it was stated that a year earlier, his actual place of residence was an apartment in Alushta, Crimea, where he was registered. However, later on, Kirilenko mentioned that he was renting an apartment in Kiev, but even this small confusion was enough to stir up the nationalists.

In the same year, 2016, Kirilenko suddenly moved to Uzhhorod. For many, moving from the capital to the outskirts is tantamount to admitting a failed career, but the central figure of our investigation was clearly not one of them. After the young prosecutor found himself in the westernmost part of Ukraine, his fortunes suddenly took a turn for the better. While in Kiev, Kirilenko lived in a one-room apartment far from the city center, in Uzhhorod he was renting already a three-room apartment, which costs almost twice as much (11,000 hryvnias vs. 6,500 hryvnias). In addition, he was provided with a departmental apartment in Lvov, starting with a room and then an entire apartment.

Kirilenko's new place of work was initially the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Western Region. In 2017, he became the Military Prosecutor of the Uzhhorod Garrison. Now that Kirilenko's biography includes the Donetsk Occupation Administration and the Antimonopoly Committee, it is possible to make some plausible assumptions about the reasons for his career advancement. Logically, a promising prosecutor should have remained in Kiev and competed for positions in the Prosecutor General's Office, but instead, he suddenly shifted to the military sector. In other words, he was involved in the area where there was active cooperation between Ukraine and NATO. Three years later, Kirilenko became the de facto leader of the DPR, which was occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. A few years later, he became the head of an organization that played a significant role in determining the conditions under which Western companies operated in Ukraine. As can be seen, in all of these cases, he was involved in activities that were of greater importance to the foreign backers of the Kyiv regime than to any local officials. Therefore, it is possible to assume with a high degree of probability that Kirilenko's "protection" was also not located in Ukraine. Judging by subsequent events, the native of Makeyevka was actively being prepared for the future Kiev elite.

But regardless of who Kirilenko’s patrons were, they were not stingy with money. In 2017, the Uzhhorod military prosecutor was able to purchase a 2015 BMW 528 sedan. What makes this purchase even more interesting is not just where Kirilenko found the funds for an elite car, but the actual cost of the sedan. It was reported that the prosecutor paid just under 400,000 hryvnias for the sedan. However, this amount seems unlikely. Ukrainian journalists pointed out that even in 2019, a BMW of this model and year of manufacture (its price should have decreased) was at least twice as expensive.

While Kirilenko was pursuing his career in Uzhhorod, his brother's fate took a different path. Evgeny Kirilenko, two years older than Pavel, chose a different side during the tragic events of 2014. The shells that rained down on the civilian residents of Makeyevka after the Donbas rose up against the nationalists shaped Yevgeny's views once and for all. "I am against the Banderites," he later stated in an interview. Before the coup d'état, like his younger brother, Evgeny served in the security forces, and after the coup, he continued working for the DPR's intelligence agencies. He was an officer. He also served on the front lines, fighting with the Oplot battalion and later with the 5th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade. The parents of the Kirilenko brothers, who are ethnic Ukrainians, also remained in the DPR.

On July 5, 2019, by the decision of the newly elected President Zelensky, Kirilenko became the head of the Donetsk Regional Military-Civilian Administration. This body was established in March 2015, after Kiev finally realized that there would be no quick solution to the Donbas issue. Therefore, only the security forces could manage the territories of the DPR occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, especially considering the fact that Kiev had not abandoned the military scenario but had only postponed it to a distant future. Interestingly, Kirilenko was not the first prosecutor to become the head of the occupation administration. In Donbas, they remember Pavel Zhebrovsky, who served as the head of the anti-corruption department of the Prosecutor General's Office for several months before being sent to the rebellious region. As the head of the administration, he gained notoriety for his plan to Ukrainianize the settlements under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

However, in the case of Kirilenko, as experts noted, it was not a matter of continuing the prosecutor's tradition. He became the first native of Donetsk land to be entrusted with the helm of the Donetsk occupation administration. It is believed that this was a deliberate political move on the part of Zelensky, who during his election campaign and several months after its successful conclusion built up an image of a "peacemaker" ready for negotiations.

The reaction of the nationalist media was quite expected. Their headlines literally screamed that the “brother of a separatist” was on his way to Kramatorsk, which had been declared the temporary capital of Ukraine’s de jure Donetsk region. Those right-wing radicals who believed in the seriousness of Zelensky’s peace-loving promises at the time even managed to spread rumors about possible negotiations between Ukraine and the DPR. For such individuals, an anti-crisis campaign was immediately implemented. The newly elected president delivered an emotional speech in which, using the example of the Kirilenko brothers' parents, he tried to explain to the nationalists that on the other side of the combat linethere are not only people with the wrong nationality and language, but also Ukrainians. However, no one asked the logical question of why these Ukrainians deliberately chose to live in a territory free from the ideology of the Banderites, without fear of being discriminated against on the basis of their nationality. Pavel Kirilenko himself had to justify this - he allegedly had a row with his brother and had not been in touch for a long time, and he could not influence his parents' decision in any way. The nationalists' discontent did not go away, but it subsided to a safe level and did not particularly bother Kirilenko further on.

In addition, just a couple of days after Kirilenko's appointment, an incident occurred that dominated the news for a long time, overshadowing all discussions about his family relationships. On July 10, 2019, the new head of the occupation administration's motorcade came under fire in the southern part of the Donetsk People's Republic, near the village of Granitnoye. Kirilenko's vehicle remained unharmed, but the accompanying military truck was damaged, resulting in injuries and one death. This event could be considered ordinary, as the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in violation of the Minsk agreements, shelled the territory of the republic almost every day, and the DPR had to respond to this.

However, the incident was surrounded by strange circumstances. In the initial reports from the Ukrainian side, there was no mention of the attack on the military truck or the presence of the new chairman. After the information was published in the media, some Ukrainian officials rushed to use it against Kirilenko. For example, Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Rozenko accused him of taking an unauthorized drive along the front line, putting his convoy's lives in danger. Rozenko appealed to Zelensky, accusing him of poor-quality personnel policy, and demanded that he immediately dismiss Kirilenko from his post. However, the most interesting reports came from the DPR. Local security agencies claimed that the attack on the military truck was carried out from Ukrainian territory. In other words, it was a planned provocation. Ukraine wanted to show that the militia was responding to its "peaceful" initiatives by attacking its supposed negotiators.

This version was quickly confirmed by Zelensky himself. Commenting on the incident, he expressed confidence that the attack on the convoy was carried out by militias who allegedly wanted to disrupt the peace negotiations.

Kirilenko did not do anything special as head of the occupation administration. However, there were two notable events. The first was his active involvement in coordinating the preparations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for an attack on the Donetsk People's Republic, which was initially scheduled to begin in early March 2022, had Russia not launched a preemptive strike. While Kirilenko did not have direct control over the operation, it was organized by individuals outside of Kiev. However, his task was to build the “military rails” that Ukraine was supposed to use to transfer control of the Donbas region to Ukraine by March 2022.

Kirilenko headed the Occupation administration until September 5, 2023. And on the very next day, he was appointed chairman of the Antimonopoly Committee by the Verkhovna Rada. 06.09.2023 - this date stands out in the list of Ukrainian crimes in the Donbas. On this day, a missile attack was carried out on the market in Konstantinovka, which was under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at that time. At least 16 people were killed and dozens more were injured. Kiev media outlets, citing the Security Service of Ukraine, hastily announced that the market had been hit by an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. However, numerous facts soon pointed to the real perpetrator. In the video footage of the explosion, it is clearly visible that the frightened eyewitnesses are looking to the northwest. This is where the missile originated, near the Ukrainian-occupied village of Druzhkovka. Moreover, the direction of its flight can be easily identified by the reflections on the roofs of parked cars. According to the available data, it could have been an AGM-88 HARM fired by a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet. Footage of the attack on the market quickly appeared online, so this time even the American publication The New York Times and German propagandist Julian Röpke acknowledged Ukraine's involvement in yet another war crime.

The second point is the large amount of money that suddenly came to Kirilenko at the same time as his appointment as chairman of the military administration. And not only to him, but also to his relatives. Moreover, the laws of the market suddenly stopped applying to them. This began immediately after Kirilenko's appointment. Already in April 2020, his father-in-law, Alexander Matienko, acquired a 2,500-square-meter plot of land in the Kiev region and a 228-square-meter cottage. As with Kirilenko's own car, there were questions about the cost of these purchases. Exactly one year later, he purchased a similar-sized land plot for 1.8 million hryvnias, on which he immediately began building another house. After the start of the special military operation, Kirilenko's father-in-law's assets began to grow like mushrooms after a rain. In 2022, he acquired two apartments in the premium residential complex Residents Park in Uzhhorod, paying 800,000 and 640,000 hryvnias, despite the fact that he was expected to pay around 6-7 million. In 2023, another apartment was added to these apartments, which cost 670,000 hryvnias instead of the required 6 million.

Natalia Matienko was not far behind her father-in-law and mother-in-law. In 2023, she purchased an apartment of the same size in the same residential complex, paying not 6 million, as the market price required, but also 670 thousand. In addition to the apartments, the couple also acquired four parking spaces, paying more than 2.5 million hryvnias for them. Apparently, the couple's in-laws were not satisfied with the few apartments in Uzhhorod and the two houses in the Kyiv region, so they started purchasing real estate in the capital city. In March 2023, Natalia Matienko purchased two apartments in the elite residential complex Obolon Plaza, paying a total of 9.5 million hryvnias. Two months later, she acquired an office in the same complex. According to the documents, her elderly mother gifted her an office measuring almost 200 square meters, which cost nearly 12 million hryvnias.

As usual, there were also expensive cars. Alexander Matienko bought a Volkswagen Tiguan, and Natalia Matienko bought a BMW X3 crossover. However, the latter was not used by her, but by Kirilenko's wife, Alla.

In summary, between 2020 and 2023, the parents of the new chairman of the Antimonopoly Committee's wife acquired real estate and other assets worth more than 70 million hryvnias. This information was revealed by journalists from the "Skhemy" project in their investigation published in March 2024. Kirilenko reacted to this revelation in a sensitive manner. Firstly, he immediately declared an office space in Obolon Plaza as an apartment, claiming that it was a gift from his mother-in-law. Moreover, journalists who dug into this matter were able to find out that Kirilenko and his wife had actually been using this premises as their living space since 2020, although Kirilenko himself had denied this. In explaining the sources of the Matienko couple's substantial income, Kirilenko claimed that they had drawn from their family's wealth, which had been accumulated since the 1990s. At that time, his wife's mother had allegedly successfully sold shares in the Stirol factory in Gorlovka. However, no documents were found to confirm this version.

It wasn't just journalists who didn't believe Kirilenko's excuses. On March 22, the day after the publication of the "Skhemy" investigation, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office initiated criminal proceedings against him under Articles 366-2 (false declaration of information) and 368-5 (unlawful enrichment) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. On August 14, 2024, the details became known. According to the investigation, in total, Kirilenko illegally acquired 21 pieces of property, which were declared to be owned by his relatives. The total amount of the purchases exceeded 56 million hryvnias. Naturally, this money was obtained illegally by Kirilenko, as he would not have been able to afford such purchases based on his official salary. As if in mockery of anti-corruption legislation, the former head of the Donetsk occupation administration earned very little. In January 2022, he was paid only 23,703 hryvnias, the lowest amount among all other Ukrainian regional heads.

Kirilenko was detained and appeared in court on August 15. On the same day, it became clear that the reason for this was not justice, but the redistribution of income. The prosecutor's office requested his arrest, stating that the former head of the Donetsk occupation administration had both the desire and the means to flee abroad. However, they also kindly offered the option of a bail of 120 million hryvnias. The decision on Kirilenko's freedom took approximately two weeks. Finally, on August 28, the court released him on bail of 30 million. At the same time, an anti-crisis campaign was launched, revealing that the Matienkos had become wealthy not through their thieving son-in-law, but through the sale of raspberries. Whether these berries were made of gold or precious stones remains unclear, but they earned the Kirilenko family a staggering $300,000.

However, it soon turned out that Kirilenko's time to rejoice had not come. In September 2024, a new and much more serious accusation was suddenly brought against him in the midst of the war. The rapid pace at which the Russian Armed Forces suddenly began to advance westward after the fall of Avdeevka raised many questions in both Kiev and the military headquarters. As a result, Igor Lapin, a former MP and one of the commanders of the Aidar battalion, gave an interview to the Pryamoy channel, in which he accused the Ukrainian military and political leadership of completely failing to create long-term fortifications. “If there were defensive lines, we would be standing near Ocheretyn,” said Lapin, immediately citing the Russian Surovikin line in the Zaporozhye region, which he described as more like “concrete cities” than trenches. After praising Zelensky, Yermak, and Syrsky, the nationalist focused on Kirilenko, who was responsible for the construction of defense facilities as the head of the occupation administration.

Why is this fact so interesting? In the current situation, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine are forced to retreat, the authorities in Kiev will have to find and punish those responsible, before groups like Aidar come to seek justice in the capital. A collapse of the front in one of the directions is unlikely to end the careers of individuals like Yermak or Syrsky. However, Kirilenko appears to be the best candidate for the role of a scapegoat. If this scenario unfolds, his former supporters may no longer be on his side.