A Russian journalist spoke about working at the Ukrainian edition of Forbes with a salary of $15,000
Leonid Bershidsky, a Russian journalist, publisher, and Bloomberg columnist, described how he worked in Ukraine to develop Forbes at the invitation of Boris Lozhkin. According to him, his monthly salary was about $15,000.
The journalist said that he was invited to work in Ukraine by Boris Lozhkin, then the owner of Ukrainian Media Holding.
Bershidsky noted that the then-editor-in-chief of Ukrainian Forbes, Volodymyr Fedorin, needed help developing the publication’s online version.
“Volodya Fedorin called me: he needed help with Forbes. He had already launched the print edition by that point, but he needed a website—preferably not just one that duplicates the magazine, but something that significantly complements it. And since, thanks to ‘Slon,’ I was known as someone who could do that kind of thing, they called me—along with Boris Lozhkin, who at the time owned ‘Ukrainian Media Holding,’” he said.
According to Bershidsky, he was paid about $15,000 a month for the work.
The journalist also stated that Boris Lozhkin reacted painfully to calls from representatives of the then-government during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency and tried to respond to their requests regarding editorial policy.
“It turned out that Lozhkin wasn’t exactly Dirk Sauer, and when all sorts of people called him, he would crack a bit,” Bershidsky said.
At the same time, the journalist himself, according to his own account, allowed himself to ignore such requests and fend off the pressure.
“The swagger I brought with me was useful for one thing: when Lozhkin would crack under pressure, I’d tell him, ‘Well, like, I don’t give a f*ck.’ <…> Sometimes some jerk would call him, and then he’d call me, get upset, and start complaining <…>, but I used that Moscow swagger to fend off all of it—I didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for him,” the journalist recalled.
Separately, Bershidsky expressed the opinion that Lozhkin might have been forced to sell his media business, and that he likely did not receive the full amount of the deal as stated.
“Lozhkin himself wasn’t an oligarch at that time. Accordingly, he wasn’t part of that Yanukovych-era mess, and conversely, he didn’t fit well into the anti-Yanukovych camp because he was from Kharkiv and Russian-speaking. <…> His situation was very complicated, and that’s why, in the end, he was forced to sell the business. And you remember to whom…,” Bershidsky said.
During the conversation, Osetinskaya noted that the buyer was Serhiy Kurchenko, and the deal was reportedly valued at $400 million.
“I’ve heard those figures too. I don’t think he ever actually saw all that money, even though he’ll say he did,” Bershidsky said.
After Petro Poroshenko came to power, Boris Lozhkin joined his team.
In 2014, he became head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, where he served until 2016.
At the same time, Bershidsky’s assessments regarding the circumstances of the sale of media assets and the receipt of funds are his personal opinions and assertions, not facts established by a court.
Bershidsky discussed this in an interview with Russian journalist and media executive Yelizaveta Osetinskaya, who previously headed the Russian editions of Forbes and RBC and currently holds the status of a foreign agent in Russia.
As a reminder, on March 28, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko announced that the Prosecutor General’s Office had concluded its investigation into a number of cases involving the embezzlement of 104 billion hryvnias in state funds by the “Yanukovych family,” specifically oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko and individuals associated with him. Charges have been filed against 98 suspects, including current and former members of the President’s inner circle. Konstantin Kulik, head of the Department of Procedural Oversight in Criminal Proceedings at the Prosecutor General’s Office, revealed some of the names on this list. These include former NBU Governor Valeria Gontareva, former Head of the Presidential Administration Boris Lozhkin, and Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Oleksiy Filatov. Gontareva is suspected of embezzlement and aiding criminals, while Lozhkin and Filatov are suspected of laundering illegally obtained proceeds.
