Oleksandr Dubinsky
Oleksandr Dubinsky is a Ukrainian journalist, politician, blogger, presenter of "Money" TV show on 1 + 1 channel; People's Deputy of Ukraine of the 9th convocation from the party "Servant of the People". Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy. Many political observers consider him to be expressing the interests of an informal group of influence of Ukrainian businessman Ihor Kolomoisky.
Biography
Born on 18 April 1981 in Kyiv. According to Oleksandr Dubinsky himself, he studied at the 187th school in Kyiv, later on he graduated from three educational institutions: technical school, Institute of Food Technology, majoring in accounting and auditing, and the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as an electrical engineer.Journalistic and blogging activities
He worked at the Economic News newspaper from 2004 to 2009, where he became known as an economic journalist.From May 2009 to May 2010 he worked as Editor-in-Chief of Weekly.ua
Since 2009 he has been blogging on the Ukrayinska Pravda website. At some point, the editorial staff began to warn that the journalist was biased. "Attention! The editorial board suspects that this author is performing some of his tasks. Keep this in mind when reading, " — stated in the description. The last blog post was published in mid-2015.
He became a creative producer for the Journalistic Investigations Department on 1 + 1 TV channel in 2010. In 2014, he was the host of the "Money" show. Since 2012, under the direction of Oleksandr Dubinsky, the program Ukrainsky Sensatsii has been launched on 1 + 1. According to party "Servant of the People", he is the creative producer of Ukrainsky Sensatsii and Secret Materials shows on 1 + 1.
In April 2017, he launched the personal blog site Dubinsky.Pro. Since May 2017, he has been actively blogging on YouTube.
Politics
As reported by Media Detector, when Oleksandr Dubinsky started working as the head of the Journalistic Investigations department in 2010, he became a clear and consistent advocate of the 1+1 channel's owner Igor Kolomoisky. For instance, some productions of Ukrainsky Sensatsii have signs of political put-up job. Particularly, the production of 23 March 2019 called "50 Shades of Poroshenko" where the former President of Ukraine was accused of creating a criminal group on the territory of Moldova and involvement in the murder of his brother Mykhailo.Solomiia Vitvitska, a journalist at 1+1, called such investigations "strange" and assured that the TSN studio is not related to them. Oleksandr Dubinsky released a lot of critical materials about Petro Poroshenko and only one about Yulia Tymoshenko. At the same time, he has his favourite – almost every Volodymyr Zelenskyi's public move is shown in a positive light.
He ran as a majoritarian in the 94th district in the Kyiv region in the snap elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2019 representing the "Servant of the People" party. He hadn't been a member of any other political party before. Vidsich movement opposed Dubinsky within the Red Lines campaign. He won the election and became a People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 9th convocation.
Member of the "Servant of the People" party.
Honors
In 2007, 2008 and 2009 he was renowned as the best financial and economic journalist of Ukraine according to the results of the Business circles prize "PRESSZVANIE" contest. Russian-Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Novinsky is one of the sponsors of the contest.In 2008 he was the best bank journalist according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
Scandals
On 29 January 2019, representatives of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc gathered at the forum "From Kruty to Brussels. We are following our own way" which took place in Kyiv. The former president announced his decision to run for a second term. After that, Oleksandr Dubinsky posted on Facebook about it: "Poroshenko's forum today was our chance. Chance to use gas. Just everyone was there". He deleted the post later, however, it has caused scandal. Thus, on 1 February, during the live broadcast of the talk show People Are Against It on ZIK TV channel, five guests were asked to leave Oleksandr Dubinsky's studio because of this post so they left the broadcast.As stated in media reports, on 2 and 3 May 2019, Oleksandr Dubinsky's dubinsky.pro website posted the information on the introduction of a fee for placing electronic records on the MoH website about passing medical examinations, as well as budgetary funds for the training of health care workers, which were allegedly directed for a project implemented by the NGO "Patriot Protection". The MoH called these reports untrue, noting that Oleksandr Dubinsky used a fake document in his materials.
Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun filed a lawsuit against Oleksandr Dubinsky for the protection of honour, dignity and business reputation. On 8 November 2019, the Solomianskiy District Court of Kyiv dismissed Ulana Suprun's claim.
The media and primary sources point to a number of other cases where Oleksandr Dubinsky or his 1 + 1 projects disseminate fake or manipulative information.
In June 2019, a video in which Oleksandr Dubinsky says the motto "Glory to Ukraine!" is Nazi went viral, he also mentioned the legalization of this motto in the modern Ukrainian army is "absurd and lunatic". In August, shortly after being elected, Dubinsky justified the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife saying the former authorities glorified Nazi collaborators.
On 17 June 2019, Oleksandr Dubinsky shared a photo of him on Facebook in the company of Andrii Portnov and Igor Guzhva. They’re quite infamous in Ukraine.
In August 2019, Oleksandr Dubinsky supported the newly elected deputy Maxym Buzhansky, his colleague from the "Servant of the People", who called the journalist of "New Time" a "dopey cow".
On 11 November 2019, an investigation of "Nashi Hroshi" about the property of the Dubinsky family was brought out on Bihus.Info. Investigators believe that the people's deputy refused to show his fortune immediately after the election because of the large number of cars and real estate he owns with his mother and wife. Dubinsky himself does not reject this information, but only indicates that all the property was purchased before he took the office.
After top managers of the National Bank of Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Dubinsky to protect their business reputation, on 29 November 2019, he cussed out the management of NBU on social media and publicly accused Hontareva, Smolii and Rozhkova in crimes and wrongdoings.
Oleksandr Dubinsky called the foreign journalist a "stray animal" for photographing a meeting between Prime Minister Oleksii Honcharuk and the head of President’s Office Andrii Yermak in a restaurant in the capital. He expressed indignation at the work of the journalist in his post on his Facebook page where he called Radio Svoboda odious, empty and idle.
Dubinsky also called the journalist and Radio Svoboda "dumb and deceitful.".
Oleksandr Dubinsky intimidated the director of the state-owned PrivatBank Petr Krumkhanzl with Kolomoyskyi’s words about the director allegedly being a member of the Waffen-SS, which he said at Dubilet’s birthday, attended by Dubinsky.
And even after Petr Krumkhanzl was hospitalized with a suspected heart attack, Oleksandr Dubinsky continued to intimidate him: he posted on his Telegram channel that the disgruntled people were going to continue protesting at the hospital where Mr. Petr Krumkhanzl was hospitalized. Dubinsky did not immediately respond to requests for commenting on the situation. He later added on his Telegram channel that he was not celebrating a heart attack, but simply saying that "Kolomoyskyi’s toasts tend to come true."
Messages on Dubinsky’s Telegram feed indicate that Kolomoyskyi and his supporters are in favor of returning PrivatBank by any means necessary. In his Telegram, trying to avoid responsibility, Dubinsky often refers to unknown sources when making statements and sharing information.
At the end of 2019, Oleksandr Dubinsky, who "leads the Kolomoyskyi’s influence group in the Ukrainian parliament" and who, on assignment of the oligarch, "joined the public campaign... aimed at shifting responsibility for interfering in the 2016 US elections from Russia to Ukraine" met with Robert Giuliani, who was looking for compromising material on Biden.
Oleksandr Dubinsky, as an announcer on Kolomoyskyi’s 1 + 1 channel, shot a disgusting video after Kolomoyskyi’s attempt of raider attack on the Ukrainian SkyUp low-cost airline carrier with the help of the Baryshivskyi District Court of Kyiv region. There he said that low-cost airlines are "cattle cars" and expressed support for the decision against SkyUp.
On 7 April 2020, Dubinsky shared a screenshot on his Facebook page in which, on behalf of the mayor of Dnipro, Mr. Filatov, it was promised to shoot pets that residents walk in parks during quarantine. Later on, Dubinsky placed another statement saying that Filatov removed his initial post about pets from his page and affronted the mayor. In comments section under the Dubinsky’s post with insults, Filatov threatened Dubinsky using foul language with mutilations to be inflicted once they meet and literally said that Benia’s security staff won’t save him. Moreover, Filatov published a post himself where he called Dubinsky a "Bearded Nana’s sidekick".