From "Kuznya" to "Rus": how Serhiy Tihipko builds business on Russian assets

From "Kuznya" to "Rus": how Serhiy Tihipko builds business on Russian assets

The former 1st Secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Committee of the Komsomol is apparently working for Russia, but for some reason, the SSU does not notice this.

 Tetyana Nikolayenko: On Serhiy Tihipko, Forbes, and the role-based business model

I suspect that those who worked as political and economic journalists may have radically different attitudes toward this person.

For me, Tihipko is a person who, in terms of political career, lost everything possible because he always chose anything but principles.

In my recollection, he was an utterly spineless head of Yanukovych’s headquarters in 2004, managed by anyone who wasn’t too lazy to do so. And he had to explain at briefings why Yanukovych fell from an egg.

In 2010, he somehow miraculously revived politically and even took third place in the presidential elections, only to later dissolve his party and become the 3rd on the Party of Regions list, and then be dismissed from the position of Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Social Policy.

The defining moment for Tihipko as a politician was February 2014.

And he not only surrendered and voted for the dictatorial laws. On the day of the shootings, the votes of his group were desperately needed to save the state. But Tihipko chose to bargain for the position of Prime Minister.

However, he did quite well in business, not shying away from promoting it even in district newspapers of Chernihiv region (where he owns 3 agricultural companies). Although his most notable acquisition in recent years is something entirely different - in 2018, the "TAS" group acquired PJSC "Kuznya on Rybalskyi Plant," which previously belonged to the fifth president, Petro Poroshenko. There was a lot of talk, including about umbrella services.

But that’s not all about Tihipko’s exemplary business model. Two years ago, I came across some materials related to the Knyazev case. And there is an episode where Knyazev’s accomplice, Horetsky, speaks with Zhevago. And do you know what they discuss, among other things? How the arrest was lifted from the "Rus" hotel for Tihipko. Horetsky openly boasts that he did it bypassing the resistance of the SBI and prosecutors.

Let me explain: the hotel once belonged to a group of Russians, Giner and Babakov. But then, in 2023, the Shevchenkivskyi Court lifted the arrest and transferred it to Tihipko.

I once wanted to write a large article about the fate of these sanctioned assets, but now you will simply learn how Tihipko’s role model did it.

Currently, the hotel belongs to a Cypriot offshore company. So, if you are interested in business role models, then…