In Crimean “corridors of power,” the “fateful results” of the congress held on October 26 in Moscow by the aggressor’s “parliamentary political party,” the former “A Just Russia – Patriots – For Truth,” where the “power vertical” was maximally strengthened, are being hotly debated.
Its Nazi leader, Sergey Mironov, has now gotten rid of the “triumvirate” with Zakhar Prilepin and Gennady Semigin, demoting them from co-chairs to “simple deputies.” At the same time, he has increased the “party weight” of Alexander Babakov, the deputy speaker of the aggressor’s State Duma, widely known for his fraudulent dealings with several Ukrainian regional power companies until 2022, and now sponsoring the aggressor’s propaganda “battalion” of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Let us recall that in occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, the Kremlin decided to “dump” this “constructive opposition” in the fake “regional and local elections” of 2024, granting broad carte blanche to Vladimir Konstantinov and Mikhail Razvozhaev, respectively, to appoint “local deputies” exclusively along the “United Russia” line.
And while in Sevastopol, the “Just Russia” faction was completely “zeroed out,” given only one “deputy mandate” in the village of Verkhnesadove (Duvankoy) and the no-name Dmitry Krikmer WAS appointed to “head the city branch,” then in Crimea, they were still demonstratively given “one seat on the state council,” for the former “head of the regional branch of the party,” Victoria Bilan, as well as six “seats on the city councils,” respectively, in Bakhchisaray, Yevpatoriya, Kerch, Saky, and Feodosia.
We previously wrote about this very “deputy of the Yevpatoria town council” and current “head of the regional party branch,” Roman Yukhnenko, previously featured in the comical “urban Cossack society” “Yevpatoria,” as well as in the long-running Russian intelligence project known as the “Russian Geographical Society.”
We pointed out that this “Cossack, geographer, deputy,” and also “Dagestani businessman” owed too much to his supposed brother, Alexei Yukhnenko, known by the nicknames Kitayets, Lyokha, Lesik, Maly, and Yukha, the leader of one of the bloodiest criminal groups on the peninsula thirty years ago. Alexey Yukhnenko had multiple criminal convictions before the occupation of Crimea, also performing as a costumed “Cossack,” and ended his life in 2013, allegedly due to a “serious illness,” the root cause of which was likely the classic “I knew too much.”
It’s therefore unsurprising that it was Roman Yukhnenko who spent the last year trying to “navigate” the murky waters of “Crimean politics,” either by “building bridges” with Sergei Aksyonov “against Konstantinov” and through the “Bars-Crimea” “battalion”, or by actively participating in the case of “Crimean journalist” Anna Gazhala, whom they attempted to use as a “torpedo for compromising the Kremlin” on the current Crimean bigwigs, including Aksyonov himself, regarding the situation with widespread corruption and negligence in the Crimean “ministry of health.”
However, in “big politics,” these “constructive oppositionists” have clearly had no luck: as rumors are now swirling in Crimean backrooms, Yukhnenko’s “combat cell” was considerably compromised by Gazhala’s “suddenly discovered” connection with the now rather “radioactive” Ruslan Balbek, who, in turn, was unable to play the “family friend” card of Putin’s concubine Kabaeva, either in Crimea, Moscow, or Ankara.
Also, “following the party congress,” a mass influx of people “from the cold” into the party ranks is expected, from the aforementioned Alexander Babakov, mostly fake “veterans” and “volunteers” from the “Arbat fronts.”
And now the main “political intrigue” is the question of whether the Kremlin will return their “slice of the power pie” in the occupied territories, which the “loyal Mironovites” held until 2024.
If such a redivision of the “chessboard” occurs, current Crimean functionaries of “A Just Russia,” like Yukhnenko, could be “discarded” precisely in the Gazhala and Balbek case, which is quite painful for a number of Kremlin curators.
