Oleksandr Onishchenko, a newly minted Macedonian citizen, is registered at an address in Pržino with a boss he has never seen before.
The owner of the house where the oligarch is registered, said that there is no problem with the fact that Onishchenko is registered at his home address and that this man brought a bunch of gold medals to the country with the Macedonian Equestrian Federation under the name of Macedonia.
28B "Przhino" Street, where it is registered the new Macedonian citizen Oleksandr Onishchenko as a voter in the Macedonian voter list, is a house in which he never appeared or lived.
"Sloboden Pechat" today knocked on the door of the house, where the owner, who introduced himself as Mile, opened the door for us. When we told him that we were looking for Onishchenko, he replied that he was at large. Asked if he lives at the indicated address, he replied that he does not live here and never has. Asked who registered him with a residence at the address "Przhino" 28 B, the owner told us that a certain basketball player gave his consent to Onishchenko to be registered at that residence.
- He doesn't live here, he just registered at this address. I've never seen it. And who registered him at this address, you will ask him and those who gave him citizenship and passport, not me. No one ever came here to check on him. The man who gave Onishchenko permission to register at this address is a basketball player, the homeowner told us, visibly unperturbed that a man he had never met was registered as a resident at his address.
In the conversation we had outside the front door, he expressed anti-American views, calling the US an imbecile state, after we told him that Onishchenko was on the list of sanctioned persons by the US, which he was placed on in January 2021 for membership in a Russian influence network the US presidential election. The owner of the house where the oligarch is registered, said that there is no problem with the fact that Onishchenko is registered at his home address and that this man "brought a bunch of gold medals to the country under the name of Macedonia with the Macedonian Equestrian Federation".
The procedure for checking Onishchenko in the NSA, as for all other applicants for citizenship, also includes a department in the National Security Agency that should contact strategic partners and from there get a positive or negative opinion on the applicant for citizenship.
"Sloboden Pechat" yesterday sent a question to the US Embassy whether the NBA sent them a request to check Oleksandr Onishchenko and whether their services gave an answer and whether it was positive or negative. We addressed the same question to the director of the ANB Viktor Dimovski. We did not receive any answers.
Far from the extraordinary luxury to which the oligarch is accustomed, the address thanks to which he received his citizenship in Przyno, Skopje, is an older two-story house with a yellow facade and multiple entrances, and there is nothing luxurious about its appearance. Entry B is exactly the one where Onishchenko is registered in the voter's list. In National Security Agency his request for citizenship passed, and after receiving a positive opinion, the procedure continued with a final vote to grant Onishchenko Macedonian citizenship at a government session.
Onishchenko lives a luxurious life, taking pictures with world stars from the fields of sports, fashion and Hollywood, such as Elie Saab, Eva Longoria and famous tennis players, but his name is overshadowed by accusations of crime and corruption.
The FBI has been training Ukrainian police officers to pursue Ukrainian power figures accused of corruption. One of those officials, part of Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau, told the BBC that Onishchenko, who also competed in equestrian sports for Ukraine at the London Olympics, stole more than 100 million euros from the country. He was involved in malpractices with Ukrainian companies that bought state-owned gas from Ukraine at dumped prices, then sold the gas at a much higher price and without paying taxes. Precisely because of that investigation against him and just before he was arrested, Onishchenko, the newly minted Macedonian citizen, escaped from Ukraine.
The oligarch is on the list of people sanctioned by the United States, because, according to American authorities, he was a member of a Russian network to influence the 2020 American presidential election. The oligarch allegedly gave him redacted audio recordings of alleged conversations between the former Ukrainian president Poroshenko и Joe BidenOn Andrij Derkach, an independent Ukrainian lawmaker, allegedly linked to the Kremlin. Then Derkach started releasing these recordings, at a time when Biden was the leading candidate for the presidency of the Democratic Party, and his opponent was Trump.
Ukrainian media reports that Onishchenko always tried to live surrounded by beautiful women, and he was also the co-owner of a large modeling agency. Apart from organizing beauty contests, the oligarch is also accused of making money from VIP prostitution.
Onishchenko is wanted in Ukraine. He escaped to the northern part of Germany, where he promised to invest in equestrian sports in the municipality of Herzlake. There he spent several million euros investing in horses. You also registered a residence address in Germany and opened a corporation. But his dreams of settling in Germany were dashed when he was refused a visa. It is not clear whether Onishchenko has opened companies in Macedonia as well. Before Germany, he spent part of his time fleeing to Spain from Ukrainian charges of money laundering and corruption. In his book published in Germany in January 2018, Onishchenko openly says that he himself bought parliamentary votes with large sums of money.
