Resignations of the year

Newsmakers gone into the shadows

Victor Yanukovich

After three months of intense political confrontation that ended in bloody clashes in the center of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had no choice but to hastily leave Kyiv. Maidan was not reassured by the fact that the head of state signed an agreement with the opposition on the return to the 2004 Constitution (parliamentary-presidential rule) and early presidential elections: those gathered in the center of the capital demanded the immediate resignation of Yanukovych. On the night of February 21-22, he actually fled from his residence Mezhyhirya to Kharkov, leaving a lot of compromising documents and luxury items in the house. On February 22, in an interview with the 112 Ukraine TV channel, Yanukovych said that he was not going to resign, and qualified what was happening in the country as “banditry” and a coup d'état. A few hours later, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution stating that the President of Ukraine "unconstitutionally removed himself from the exercise of constitutional powers" and called early presidential elections. In the days that followed, Yanukovych moved first to Crimea, and from there to Russia, which did not prevent him from time to time from declaring that he remains the current president. After early presidential elections on May 25, 2014, Yanukovych said that he "respects the choice of the Ukrainian people." At home, several criminal cases were initiated against the former president immediately after his flight. Accounts of Viktor Yanukovych and his sons, suspected of illegal enrichment, as well as a number of officials from his entourage, have been arrested in the EU countries.

Denis Sugrobov

On February 21, Vladimir Putin, by his decree, dismissed 37-year-old police lieutenant general Denis Sugrobov from the post of head of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. According to unconfirmed reports, the young police lieutenant general wrote his resignation after his subordinates were detained on February 14, who were conducting operational research on FSB Colonel Demin, whom they suspected of "covering" businessmen. There is a version that behind the actions of the operatives was the assistant to the president (and his close friend from the Dresden residency in the GDR) Yevgeny Shkolov, the actual curator of the entire law enforcement system in the presidential administration. The development of the situation is also indicative. In May, Sugrobov, following his subordinates, was arrested on charges of malfeasance, and in June, his deputy, young Major General Boris Kolesnikov, died throwing himself from the balcony of the 6th floor of the Investigative Committee. The remaining officers, accused of organizing a criminal group, made a deal with the investigation. But in November, investigator Sergei Novikov, who personally interrogated Kolesnikov and smoked with him on that very balcony, was removed from the case, and in early December, at a briefing in the presidential administration on the fight against corruption, nothing was said about Sugrobov's "organized criminal group". words.

Vladimir Kozhin

On May 12, the president made personnel changes among senior officials, removing a number of iconic figures in his entourage from office. The most unexpected was the resignation of the almighty head of the presidential administration, Vladimir Kozhin. A native of St. Petersburg, a man from the circle of Vladimir Putin, Kozhin came to the Kremlin to replace Yeltsin's manager Pavel Borodin back in 2000. Unlike the jovial Borodin, the new manager was an extremely closed figure for a long time. The main direction of his activity was the expansion of the sphere of influence of the presidential administration and its commercialization. Kozhin achieved the transfer to his department of foreign property, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A number of architectural monuments on the territory of the Kremlin, many historical architectural objects in St. Petersburg and around it have been transferred to the balance of managing the affairs of the president. Kozhin was engaged in the construction of the Star Way Congress Center in Strelna, the restoration of the Senate building in St. Petersburg and the Konstantinovsky Palace.

The scandal with the acquisition in 2009 in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region of a plot of almost 8 hectares at a bargain price is connected with the name of Putin's manager. This story had no consequences for Kozhin's career. The reasons for his resignation are not known for certain, but the NT columnist (see No. 16 of 05/19/2014) suggested that the beginning of the decline of Kozhin's career could be a story with a leak from his entourage of information about the construction of Putin's giant residence on Cape Idokopas, not far from Gelendzhik, - the so-called "Project South", which was supervised by the FSO of Russia

Chuck Hagel

On November 24, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, 86, the only Republican in the power bloc of Barack Obama's administration, resigned. The president immediately accepted Hagel's resignation, while paying tribute to his "class and integrity." An unnamed White House official told the Associated Press that same day that Obama and Hagel had "been discussing this move for weeks now."

A veteran of the Vietnam War, respected by the military, Hagel became Pentagon chief in February 2013 in place of Leon Panetta. As The New York Times wrote, Hagel's main task was to prepare and carry out the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and he fulfilled it. When the fight against the jihadist group "Islamic State" and the resulting general change in the Pentagon's strategy in Syria and Iraq became on the agenda, the question arose of replacing Hagel, who allegedly was against active operations in the region. The American media, citing confidants of the Secretary of Defense and employees of his department, have previously reported on the growing friction between Hagel and the presidential administration over the situation in Syria.

Elena Stashina

On November 27, one of the most odious judges in Moscow, Elena Stashina, a figure on the Magnitsky list, resigned. It was she who, in November 2009, at the request of the investigation, extended the arrest of Sergei Magnitsky, ignoring evidence provided by lawyers about his poor state of health. A few days later, Magnitsky died in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. In the dossier of the judge of the Tverskoy Court of the capital there are many other high-profile cases that caused a resonance in society and outraged human rights circles. In particular, in July 2011, Stashina left in custody a seriously ill businesswoman Natalya Gulevich, who had kidney failure and needed spinal surgery.

Officially, the reason for Stashina's resignation was not named. However, some media link the sudden departure of the judge with the entry into force on November 21 of the conviction of her son, an FSB officer, who, together with an employee of the prosecutor's office of the North-Eastern District of the capital, tried to engage in racketeering, but was detained.